Panaji: The Supreme Court’s recent order halting the conversion of private forest land in Goa has sparked a political storm, with the Congress launching a scathing attack on Chief Minister Pramod Sawant. The party has accused him of facilitating backdoor access for real estate interests at the cost of environmental conservation.
The controversy stems from a 2021 decision by the Goa government to form a Review Committee (RC-II) to reassess forest lands previously identified by the Thomas and Araujo Committee. The RC-II subsequently reversed the classification of 271 survey numbers, effectively opening up over 1.2 crore square metres of land—previously designated as private forest—for potential development.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh was among the first to criticize the move, highlighting that both the Supreme Court and the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had raised concerns over the denotification of forest lands. “The Supreme Court has very recently halted the conversion of Goa’s private forest land at least for the time being. Much earlier, the NGT too had prohibited development of denotified forest land until physical verification of all plots was completed. This was never done,” Ramesh stated on a micro blogging site. He further warned that the legal battle was far from over, given the Goa government’s alleged push to free up forest lands for real estate projects.
The NGT had previously flagged the issue in September 2023, directing the state government to physically verify the lands removed from the forest list by RC-II. It had explicitly prohibited any development until the verification process was completed. However, concerns escalated after one particular plot—Survey No. 257/1 in Sancoale—was earmarked for a major commercial project.