59 Vidarbha irrigation works hampered due to forest clearances: Maharashtra government tells HC | Nagpur News – Times of India

Nagpur: The Maharashtra government on Wednesday stated that out of the 131 irrigation projects approved in Vidarbha that were affected due to forest clearances, 59 are incomplete. Out of the remaining 62 projects, 46 are completed, 16 were cancelled and 10 have not yet started due to want of forest clearances.
In an affidavit filed in the Nagpur bench of Bombay high court, chief secretary Nitin Kareer said many irrigation projects in Vidarbha are affected as 35.3% of the region is forest area, comprising Tadoba, Pench, Melghat, Navegaon-Nagzira and Karhandla.As per the affidavit, out of the targeted 10,98,411 hectares, irrigation potential created due to completed and partially completed projects is just 4,22,755 hectares (39%).

A division bench of high court comprising justices Nitin Sambre and Abhay Mantri adjourned the hearing till next week.
During the last hearing in December, the HC had slammed the government for failure to complete irrigation projects, as pointed out by petitioner Lok Nayak Bapuji Ane Smarak Samiti.
The NGO through counsels Avinash Kale and Bharti Dabhadkar contended that due to incomplete projects, the region is facing acute water scarcity and lakhs of farmers are suffering. As per the counsels, the NGO and other social organizations had visited the projects & found that even 10% were not complete.
In the state government affidavit, the chief secretary attributed the delay to causes like time taken to obtain statutory clearances (Forest/ environment clearance/wildlife), land acquisition, rehabilitation, besides technical glitches.
“There is no deliberate or intentional delay. The government had taken steps to obtain environmental and forest/wildlife clearances from the concerned authority which is a time-consuming process. The forest department is consistently pursuing clearances from Government of India. The progress of projects, including forest clearances, are being monitored at various levels, including the Prime Minister, Water Resources Ministry secretary, chief minister, and the government’s war room officials,” the affidavit stated.
The affidavit said that work on the irrigation projects also suffered during the period 2020-21 due to Covid-19 pandemic.
“About 15 projects from the 100 identified ones needed forest clearance while 12 environmental clearance. At present all the 27 projects have received clearances,” he said.
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