Modi govt's move to amend Forest Act takes a giant leap backwards

The IFA 2019 legally provides the political executive and the forest bureaucracy absolute discretion to open any forestland to commercial plantations

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has proposed a law to put around a fifth of India’s geographic area — about 708,273 square kilometres of forested lands — under a policing regime akin to the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. The draft law, which has been circulated to the states for comment, is called the Indian Forest Act, 2019. Under it, the forest department gains enhanced powers to shoot at citizens, search and seize property and arrest people even on mere suspicion of committing a crime. People depending on these lands — by government’s last estimate in 2009, around 400 million