Before J&K’s re-organisation, Dept’s plans were prepared under erstwhile State’s Forest Act
Nasir Azam
Srinagar: The Government of Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir will prepare its annual Compensatory Afforestation Management and Planning Act (CAMPA) plans under central rules.
Before re-organisation of Jammu and Kashmir, its plans were prepared under the J&K’s own Forest Act and Rules. The plans were formulated under J&K Forest Conservation Act-1997 and J&K CAF Rules- 2018.
According to wire service—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), in a letter to different departments, the office of Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) has directed different departments to prepare their annual plan of operations of CAMPA under Central Afforestation Rules 2019.
“Now with coming into effect of Jammu and Kashmir Re-organisation Act 2019 from October 31, 2019, the J&K CAF rules would be repealed and the Central CAF Act 2016 and Central CAF Rules 2018 would be applicable,” reads the letter, a copy of which lies with KNO.
Although the Central CAF Act was not extended to Jammu & Kashmir through Jammu and Kashmir Re-organisation Act, it became automatically applied to J&K UT on October 30 when the President ordered application of all central laws, which were not applicable to J&K but to rest of India, to the newly created UT.
The central laws, rules and ordinances were extended to J&K through J&K Re-organisation ( Removal of Difficulties) Order, 2019. The Jammu and Kashmir was re-organised into two Union Territories- J&K and Ladakh- on October 31 after the Parliament’s nod to bifurcation on August 5. The office of PCCF has directed all wings of Forest department to families themselves with central CAF Act and Central CAF rules.
As per central CAF rules, J&K would require to submit its plans to national CAMPA, which did not happen before bifurcation of J&K. Under the Central rules, not less than 80 percent of CAMPA funds are to be utilised for the forest and wildlife management and not more than 20 percent for forest related infrastructure and capacity building activities.
