Amendment status not verified — confirm the current text below against the official source.
3.1 In no case encroachments which have taken place after 24-10-1980 should be regularised. Immediate action should be taken to evict the encroachers. The State/UT Government may, however, provide alternate economic base to such persons by associating them collectively in afforestation activities in the manner suggested in this Ministry's letter No. 6-21/89-FP dated 1.6.90, but such benefits should not extend to fresh encroachers. Clarification A reference is invited to the guidelines issued by this Ministry for regularisation of certain cases of forest encroachments reproduced above. The relevant paragraph 1.1 of the guidelines, which clarifies the cases of encroachments, which subject to specified conditions, would be eligible for regularisation, is reproduced below: "Such cases are those where the State Governments had evolved certain eligibility criteria in accordance with local needs and conditions and had taken a decision to regularise such encroachments but could not implement their decisions either wholly or partially before enactment of the Forest (Conservation) Act on 25-10-1980. 2. Doubts have been raised as to whether all encroachments that had taken place up to 25.10.1980 could be regularised in accordance with an eligibility formula by which some earlier encroachments were regularised. 3. A perusal of the paragraph reproduced above will make it clear that there are 2 pre-conditions for any encroachments to be considered for regularisation. These are:- (a) The State Government should have taken the decision on regularisation of encroachments before 25-10-1980; and (b) that the decision should be with reference to some eligibility criteria (normally expected to be related to social and economic status of encroachers, location and extent or encroachment, cut off date of encroachment, etc.,) 4. It would be seen that the encroachments which are proposed to be considered for regularisation, subject to the prescribed conditions, are those which fulfilled the eligibility criteria evolved by the State Government as per decision taken before 25-10-1980 for regularisation of encroachments. The objective is limited to permitting implementation of decisions taken before 25-10-1980 which could not be implemented because the enactment of Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 intervened. It is therefore quite clear that while all encroachments that can be considered as eligible for regularisation would have taken place before 25-10-1980, all encroachments that had taken place before 25-10-1980 would not be eligible for regularisation they may be ineligibile because either they do not meet the eligibility criteria or are not covered by any decision taken before 25-12-1980. Thus, if the decision on regularisation of encroachments in a State covered only encroachments up to a date earlier than 25-10-1980, the guidelines on regularisation of encroachments do not envisage that the State Government would now survey encroachments between that date and 25-10-1980 and propose regularisation. The latter encroachments though occurring before 25-10-1980 are not covered by any regularisation decision taken prior to that date and hence cannot be considered for regularisation at this juncture.