New Delhi: BJD Chief Whip in the Lok Sabha Tathagata Satpathy Wednesday opposed the Indian Forest Act (Amendment) Bill 2017 which seeks to do away with the need for government nod for felling of bamboo and transporting them for economic use.
Participating in the debate on the tabled Bill on behalf of his party, Satpathy said, “If you remove bamboo from the federal Forest Act, how you think it can be saved and more bamboo could be produced. Are you trying to tell us that by creating an atmosphere where there will be privatisation of bamboo, the country will see a greater growth in bamboo clumps/forests?”
He also asked the government if there would be more economic activity because of privatisation and if privatisation was the only method to finish all the evils of Indian forests? The MP also took a dig at the Union government for taking the ordinance mode for the Bill.
Satpathy said, “I share my opposition to this ordinance being turned into a Bill. My question is who actually in this country has been benefited in this period from the day the ordinance was passed till now. You have been misguided by your officials or due to some other external pressure which is not in the interest of the poor farmers.”
The Dhenkanal MP also told the House that most of the states like Orissa, Maharashtra and others had enacted their own forest Acts and rules and the proposed amendment in the 1927 Act would not change anything on the ground level.
He also asked the Union government how the forest check guards can differentiate between forest and non-forest clumps of bamboo loaded on trucks.
The Dhenkanal MP also told the Lower House, “In Orissa, there are people who eat bamboo shoots like a dietary supplement. At times when there are chances of dry spell people consume bamboo products. The bamboo flowers produce a kind of paddy (rice) which is consumed by the local people in Orissa at such times.”
He requested the government to not attack lives of the poor farmers and reconsider moving the legislation again after re-working and going into more details of the consequences of the proposed legislation.
PNN
