Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980
Clearance Process for Diversion of Forest Land
The Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 requires prior approval of the Central Government before any state government or authority can divert forest land for non-forest purposes. The clearance process has two stages: Stage 1 (in-principle clearance, issued after the EAC and NBWL examine the proposal) and Stage 2 (final clearance, granted after the proponent fulfils conditions including compensatory afforestation, payment to CAMPA, and gram sabha consent from affected villages).
- A 2009 MoEFCC order mandated gram sabha certification — confirming recognition of community forest rights — as a prerequisite for forest diversion proposals to be admissible.
- Compensatory afforestation must typically be done over twice the area of diverted forest land (non-forest land) or equivalent degraded forest.
- MoEFCC rejected Stage 1 clearance for the Sharavathi project in May 2025, citing risks of landslides in the ecologically fragile Western Ghats terrain and inadequate compensatory afforestation plans.
- Without Stage 1 clearance, the project cannot legally proceed to ground-level construction in forest areas.
● Tracked since March 10, 2026 · last seen September 10, 2026 · updates as the daily brief publishes
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