State govts should exempt high-value native timber from obtaining felling and transit permits

The Economic Advisory Council to the PM (EAC-PM) has suggested that state governments should exempt high-value native timber species like Teak, Gurjan and Meranti from the need to obtain felling and transit permits for the trees grown on private lands.

The EAC-PM in a working paper titled 'Agroforestry: Missing Trees for the Forests,' further said this would make it easy for farmers to grow these high-value native species on their own lands and reduce pressure on India's native forests.

"To tackle the challenge of conservation-led forest policies, state governments should exempt high-value native timber species like Teak, Gurjan and Meranti from the need to obtain felling and transit permits for the trees grown on private lands," the paper suggested.

The paper also pitched for creating a single window clearance at the central level with a uniform process to obtain transit and felling permits while recommending a government mandate proving ownership of trees instead of ownership of land to put India on the path to going from a teak importer to a leading exporter.

While noting that a stringent, complex and cumbersome regulatory policy, combined with a conservation-led approach to forestry has stifled the growth of agroforestry in India, the paper said, "The policy change proposed will put India on the path to going from a teak importer to a leading exporter, enhancing farmers' income and improving the carbon content of the soil".

Therefore, replacing teak imports by scaling up domestic production through agroforestry provides not only a low-cost opportunity to reduce imports worth USD 350 million per year but, more importantly, create new economic opportunities for farmers, artisans and manufacturers by making India a leader in the global teak market, the paper noted.

It suggested that to solve the issue of the farmer needing to go to different departments because of multiple acts and different rules governing the felling of trees, the National Transit Pass System (NTPS) should expand its scope to include the issuance of felling permits, thereby creating a single-window clearance system.

Despite being a tropical country, India has not been able to unlock the full potential of agroforestry. India's agroforestry sector remains under-utilised and stifled by regulation.

A stringent, complex and cumbersome regulatory policy combined with a

conservation-led approach to forestry has stifled the growth of agroforestry in India.

Consequently, India has become a net importer of timber. In 2023, India imported over USD 2.7 billion worth of timber (ITTO 2023), which equals almost 12 per cent of all agro-based imports for the same year (Damodaran 2024).

Furthermore, between 2010 and 2019, 42 per cent of total timber imports came from "at-risk countries", while 80 per cent of teak and more than 70 per cent of Gurjan (high-value native species) came from high-risk countries or conflict-affected states (Canby 2020).