Report on private forestlands rejected
Deputy Chief Minister Vijai Sardesai on Saturday said the state government has rejected the review committee report on private forestlands in the state, claiming that the methods used therein were faulty and did not have approval of the government.
Speaking to media persons in Fatorda on the sidelines of a function, Sardesai said Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has ordered formation of a new review committee: the Sawant-Karapurkar committee report will be taken up as base for studying the private forestlands.
Sardesai said the method of ‘stratified random sampling’ was not correct and did not have government’s approval.
He said the criteria of 5 per cent sampling intensity for field verification was “assumptive” and had no public consultations. “The review committee had submitted the report, which has been rejected by the government. A new report will be prepared correcting the anomalies,” he said.