Infrastructure projects that illegally cleared forests must now prove that they have completed forensic afforestation before getting final approval, the Union Environment Ministry said in its directions to states and union territories.
In a letter sent earlier this month, the ministry said it was implementing the guidelines issued on January 21, 2026, which stipulate a uniform procedure for imposing penal compensatory afforestation on projects that have converted forest land in violation of the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam Act, 1980.
States have been asked to follow the procedure and provide proof of criminal afforestation to regulate such projects.
Compensatory afforestation is a mandatory legal requirement under which entities must create new forests or restore degraded land to compensate for the loss of forest cover for non-forest purposes, such as mining or infrastructure development.
Before the January guidelines framed a uniform policy, the central government was considering cases of violations for approval on the condition that penal compensatory afforestation provisions were applied in lieu of forest land actually used in violation of the law.
The ministry’s letter pointed out a recurring problem: While providing compliance with Phase 1 approval conditions for violation cases, state governments were merely providing undertakings from project proponents to comply with penal afforestation conditions, rather than providing full details as required under the January 21 guidelines.
The Department has now requested full compliance, supported by a verification report from the Regional Office of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change confirming the suitability of the proposed lands for penal afforestation. “Normalizing illegal forest use by allowing retrospective discretionary approval with penal afforestation creates a perverse incentive to undertake non-forest use without permission, which in effect represents a compound violation,” said forest analyst Chetan Agarwal.
