The Ministry of Environment and Forests, GOI has made available a draft National Forest Policy for comments due on April 14.
Here is the draft:
According to this the India Environment Portal, the MoEF says that (15/03/2018)
The overall objective and goal of the present policy is to safeguard the ecological and livelihood security of people, of the present and future generations, based on sustainable management of the forests for the flow of ecosystem services In order. to achieve the national goal for eco-security, the country should have a minimum of one-third of the total land area under forest and tree cover. In the hills and mountainous regions, the aim will be to maintain two-third of the area under forest & tree cover in order to prevent soil erosion and land degradation and also to ensure the stability of the fragile eco-systems.
This post in The Logical Indian, which summarizes the issues, says the following; I have not yet been able to find this information on the government site:
[All stakeholders including public/private organisations, experts and concerned institutions are requested to send the comments on draft National Forest Policy, 2018.
Comments should be specific – indicating para of policy document – and should be sent to digfpolicy-mef@nic.in/jitesh.
Please do circulate widely and give your feedback!