In a submission before the National Green Tribunal (NGT), the Himachal Pradesh government has disclosed that nearly 0.11 per cent of the state’s forest land has been lost to illegal encroachments across various forest categories, including protected forests, reserved forests, deemed forests, sanctuaries/protected areas and other forest land.

According to an affidavit filed by the Forest Department before the tribunal on May 6, a total of 3,816.830211 hectares of forest land out of the state’s total forest cover of 34,06,534.8745 hectares was found to be under illegal encroachment till March 2024. The government further informed the NGT that encroachments had been removed from approximately 2,573.5807 hectares of forest land out of the total encroached area, while the remaining land continues to be under illegal occupation.

The NGT was informed that eviction orders were passed in hundreds of encroachment cases but in some of the cases, appeals were pending either before the appellant authorities or High court of Himachal Pradesh. The affidavit was submitted before the Tribunal through advocate Divyanshu Kumar Srivastava in a suo-moto proceedings over reports claiming that the ‘forest land five times Delhi’s geographical area under encroachment as per the government figures in 2024’. Himachal was among 29 States/UTs which submitted the affidavits pertaining to the encroachment on the forest lands.

The affidavit revealed that Shimla district recorded the highest extent of forest encroachment in the state. Out of its total forest cover of 3,32,253.2645 hectares, as much as 1,839.7284 hectares was under encroachment. The district alone accounted for nearly half of the total encroached forest land in the state. The percentage loss of forest land due to encroachment in Shimla stood at 0.55 per cent, the highest among all districts.

Kullu district emerged as the second worst affected district, with 815.0641 hectares of forest land under encroachment out of a total forest cover of 4,65,420.65 hectares. The percentage loss in Kullu was recorded at 0.17 per cent. Mandi district reported encroachments over 263.2944 hectares of forest land out of 1,73,447.89 hectares of total forest cover, while Kangra district recorded 318.9396 hectares of encroached land out of 6,95,314.77 hectares.

In Chamba district, 137.8226 hectares of forest land was found encroached upon out of a total forest area of 5,22,476.94 hectares. Sirmaur district reported encroachments on 166.5814 hectares of forest land, whereas Kinnaur recorded encroachments on 206.3483 hectares. The affidavit also showed that Bilaspur district had 9.108 hectares of encroached forest land, Hamirpur 2.3144 hectares, Una 0.3744 hectares, Solan 9.129211 hectares and Lahaul-Spiti 48.1254 hectares.