Shimla, November 30: The Forest Department is in a fix over the fate of five eco tourism sites, whose lease term is getting over in January next year as further extension to these will attract the provisions of the Supreme Court ruling that no forest areas can be given out under the private-public-partnership (PPP) mode.
The department has sought the directions of the government as to what should be done. Though the department has newly identified 122 eco-tourism sites, with the court directives, these cannot be leased and will have to be run by the department or by societies.
In the light of the court directions, ensuring implementations of the Forest Conservation Act (FCA) 1980, the department is running 16 of the 122 sites that have been identified for promoting eco-tourism. Two more sites are being run by the HP Forest Corporation and five have been leased under the PPP mode.
“We have yet to take a call on the future of these five sites. Though there is a provision to lease these for another three years, that will be done in accordance with the court directives,” said Ram Subhag Singh, Additional Chief Secretary, Tourism and Forest. He added that the three-year grant of lease could be given, subject to seeking the FCA clearance.
It is in pursuance of the SC directives that the department had to cancel the lease of three sites which are forest rest houses at Dalhousie and Kangra and Sonu Bangla in Shimla.
It was in 2009 that 10 sites had been given on lease but only five became operational and the remaining were surrendered.
The department enhanced the lease money and rent for these five properties for five years when their term expired in January 2014. The total amount the BJP government was getting was Rs 27.90 lakh which was enhanced to Rs 98.75 lakh by the Congress regime. These five sites were given out for another five years subject to the condition that no permanent structures were constructed and no damage was being caused to the forests.
