PESHAWAR: The Survey of Pakistan has discredited the departmental inquiry report into illegal encroachments and deforestation in the highly publicized Makhnial forest in the Haripur district. The survey has raised serious questions on the credibility of the inquiry report, which had revealed that land developers and builders have illegally occupied approximately 15.75 hectares (38.92 acres) of the forest, besides illicit cutting of conifer trees and turning forest area into commercial and residential schemes.
However, the Survey of Pakistan has revealed that only 4.16 acres have been encroached out of 3,366 hectares that too comprise 0.29 acres under buildings whereas the remaining 3.86 acres is merely fenced.
It was proved that the existing GIS data is unfit for the determination of forest boundaries and detection of encroachment. The encroachments found in Makhnial Reserved Forest is far less than that detected in other reserved forests through re-demarcation of Survey of Pakistan in Galyat, Siren and Khanpur which is 941, 254 and 18 acres respectively. Similarly, encroachment has been identified on 115 acres in Afror Tanawal and 47 acres in Kaghan valley.
When contacted, Minister Environment, Forest and Wildlife Ishtiaq Urmar confirmed the report, saying that only 4.16 acres of forest land encroached instead of 15.75 hectares. The department has already retrieved 0.59 acres while possessors have approached the courts and got stay orders on the rest of the 3.59 acres.
“We had approached the Survey of Pakistan to re demarcate Makhnial Forest and the government owns this report. The departmental committee report was not correct,” he said When asked what action will be taken against preparing a wrong report, Minister Ishtiaq said action will be taken against those, who submit a wrong report and damage the credibility of the department.
Pleading anonymity an officer of the Forest Department told this correspondent that the report of the survey of Pakistan not only differs from the outcomes of the de-novo inquiry report but also exposed flaws in GIS data, favoritism of the committee in fixing responsibilities. He said an officer after succeeding expunction of adverse entries in his PERs (performance Evaluation Reports), constituted an inquiry committee consisting of blue-eyed officials to defame the former secretary and other officers of the Forest Department.
One of the victims knocked the doors of Peshawar High Court vide writ petition no. 701-A/2021. The court on September 28, 2021, decreed to include the report of Survey of Pakistan in the inquiry regarding re-demarcation of the reserved forests of Makhnial carried out according to survey sheets prepared by Survey of India during 19015-16. He pleaded in the writ petition that the committee as expected came up with a report which was full of flaws and errors.
Encroachments in those forests were reported which neither exist physically nor in the record. After identifications of such flaws in the GIS data used for determination of the encroachments, instead of correction in the GIS data, a de-novo inquiry was ordered vide notification on September 21, 2020.
According to a letter available with this scribe, the Survey of Pakistan was engaged for the re-demarcation of the Makhnial Reserved Forest on April 22, 2021. The Survey of Pakistan report rejects the Inquiry Committee's claim of land mafia occupation of a large part of forests.
The report revealed that only 4.16 acres area has encroached, wherein construction has been made on 0.29 acres and 3.86 acres have been just fenced. The Chief Conservator Forest Southern Region in his letter on October 13, 2021, addressed to Administrative Department said that therefore the subject inquiry report without recourse to other shortcomings inter alia restricting fixing responsibility to a particular tenure ending on November 08, 2018, despite mentioning the timeline of the reported encroachment checked after two years. It is proved that the existing data is unfit for the determination of forest boundaries and detection of encroachment as communicated by the incumbent Conservator in different letters. Hence the inquiry report built on such data loses its credibility.
“The basic cause of said unattended encroachment was broken boundary pillars erected some 100 years ago. The forest staff was aware of only 1.5 kanal (0.075 hectares) legal action against which was already taken. It’s strongly recommended that the subject de-novo inquiry report may please be filed,” the letter said.