New Delhi, Jun 15 (KNN) The environment ministry has plans to partially outsource monitoring of clearances, given for millions of hectares of forests for industrial and other development activities, to private entities.

It has also pushed for self-reporting by the industries of their agreement, or lack of it, with the norms specified while handing over forest land to projects, according to a media report. 

The ministry has proposed that project developers shall put out annual self-monitoring reports. The projects shall also be monitored by state forest officials at fixed frequencies.

The Centre will monitor the status of agreement to conditions stated in approvals through its regional offices as well as a panel of accredited institutions/individual experts' remote-sensing satellite based on real-time mechanism, said the report. 

Since the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, was passed forests have been given over to the industry at the rate of 35,554 hectares every year, but since 2004 the ministry has given an unprecedented number of clearances adding up to about 6 lakh hectares — more than 65,000 hectares annually on an average. (KNN)