Central environment ministry directs Uttarakhand forest department to immediately take action against missing of forest pillars and encroachment of land in Mussourie forest under Forest conservation act 1980 and IFA 1927
The president of Rashtriya Regional Party Shiv Prasad Semwal has demanded that the Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami immediately convene a high level meeting and form a committee comprising of the senior revenue officials and the Forest department to carry out the survey as to how much forest land in entire Uttarakhand have been illegally captured or encroached upon including building illegal structures on forest land which is against the forest rules.
The founder president of Rashtriya Regional Party Shiv Prasad Semwal was speaking to the media after the union environment ministry at the centre has received complaint from Uttarakhand Forest Department’s chief conservator of forests ( Karya Yojana) Sanjiv Chaturvedi.
In a detailed letter addressed to Additional chief Forest conservator, Ministry of environment , government of India Mr. Chaturvedi complained that when the Mussourie forest department under is re- inspection campaign inspected the Mussourie forest land it was found that the large number of forest pillars in forest division of Mussourie were missing on massive scale and forest land has been illegally encroached upon.
The letter says that in the absence of forest pillars there is every possibility of encroachment of forest land which warrants immediate penalisation under the Forest conservation act 1980 which was amended in 2023 known as forest conservation 1980 Act amended in 2023.
However, the complaint is self explanatory as below.
On the complaint of the chief conservator of forests ( Karya Yojna) Dr. Sanjiv Chaturvedi , the union environment ministry immediately responded on 28 August 2025 giving the reference of the complaint directing the state government to immediately comply by taking action against the encroachers on forest land of Mussoorie and subsequent disappearance of the Forest pillars under Indian Forest Act 1927 and Forest Conservation Act 1980.
It also directed the state government to send the compliance report of the action taken in this regard at the earliest.
The total disappeared forest pillars are in 7.5 thousand numbers and it may be the handiwork of land mafia and land grabbers.
