States and UTs, which are still to submit the data and details on forest encroachment, are Bihar, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan,Telangana, West Bengal, Nagaland, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.Forest area or The Recorded Forest Area (RFA) includes land officially designated as forest by the government, even if it does not have tree cover.RFA is further divided into three categories: reserved forests, which have full protection, with activities like hunting and grazing generally banned; protected forests, where some activities are allowed unless specifically restricted; and unclassed forests, which are not classified as reserved or protected.This is different from forest cover which refers to the actual area with tree canopy (more than 1 hectare with tree canopy density of at least 10 per cent), regardless of legal status.Forest cover includes forests inside and outside recorded forest areas, such as plantations, community forests and private lands with tree growth.According to the ministry’s report, Madhya Pradesh had the highest forest encroachment among all states and UTs, with 5,460.9 sq km affected as of March 2024.Assam has 3,620.9 sq km of forest area under encroachment.A total of 863.08 sq km of forest land in Karnataka is under encroachment, followed by 575.54 sq km in Maharashtra, 534. 9 sq km in Arunachal Pradesh, 405.07 sq km in Odisha, 264.97 sq km in Uttar Pradesh, 247.72 sq km in Mizoram, 200.40 sq km in Jharkhand and 168.91 sq km in Chhattisgarh.Tamil Nadu has 157.68 sq km of encroached forest land, Andhra Pradesh 133.18 sq km, Gujarat 130.08 sq km, Punjab 75.67 sq km, Uttarakhand 49.92 sq km and Kerala 49.75 sq km, 42.42 sq km in Tripura, 37.42 sq km in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and 32.7 sq km in Manipur.The ministry’s report said that encroachment has been removed from 409.77 sq km of forest land so far.However, it is unclear whether this area was excluded from the total forest land under encroachment as of March 2024.The ministry informed the NGT that it had asked states to submit data through letters sent on May 1, May 17 and May 28 last year.States and UTs were also reminded multiple times over the phone and a meeting was held with them on November 11.The ministry sent further reminder letters on February 22 and March 26 this year, asking the remaining states and UTs to provide the information in a tabulated format.
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