The Government has taken various reform/initiatives for securing forest for growth and livelihood, which are very precious for any society. While giving reply to a question in Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Ashwini Kumar Choubey informed that the Ministry has issued Wood Based Industries (Establishment and Regulation) Guidelines, 2016 and amendment dated 11th September 2017 to decentralize the regulatory processes concerning the wood based industries for the development of the sector in the country. To promote cultivation of bamboo in non-forest areas and to achieve the objective of increasing the income of farmers and green cover outside forest area, the Ministry has amended the Indian Forest Act, 1927 to exempt Bamboo grown in non- forest area from definition of tree, and thereby doing away with the requirement of felling/transit permit for its transport and economic use.
For seamless movement of timber, bamboo and other minor forest produce, the Ministry has also launched National Transit Pass System on pilot basis for issue of online transit permits. This system will help in monitoring and keeping records of movement of timber and issue of transit permits for inter-state and intra-state transportation of timber and bamboo and other minor forest produce from private lands/ government/private depot. The Ministry has developed web based Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applications PARIVESH portal (Pro-Active and Responsive facilitation by Interactive Virtuous and Environmental Single-window Hub), which is a single-window integrated forest and environmental management system for online submission and monitoring of the proposals submitted by the proponents for seeking Environment, Forest, Wildlife and Coastal Regulation Zone clearances from Central Government. It is a GIS based system and analytics platform that provides information to various stakeholders using Decision Support System functionality. Further, e-Green Watch portal of the Ministry is an advanced technology based platform designed to facilitate automation, streamlining and effective management of processes related to plantations and other forestry works taken up under CAMPA fund. Forest Survey of India (FSI) carries out analysis of geo-spatial data (polygons) of various plantations uploaded by the State Forest Departments on e-Green Watch portal for accuracy of location, area and year of plantation. Forest Survey of India has also developed Van Agni Geo-portal to provide user-friendly interactive viewing of the forest fire related data for continuous monitoring and tracking of large forest fires in near real-time basis. Van Agni Geo-portal serves as a single point source for the information related to forest fires in India.
