Assam’s nearly 11.28 per cent or 259700 hectares of forest area is occupied by encroachers, second highest in the country, the environment ministry revealed.
The ministry was replying to a query filed under the Right to Information Act by Akash Vashisht, a Ghaziabad-based legal activist, on July 23, 2019.
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The ministry replied to him on August and the activist made the reply public on Friday.
Assam is behind Madhya Pradesh and just ahead of Odisha.
“We have only compiled the encroachment data shared by states with us. These are not the latest figures,” reported Hindustan Times quoting AK Prabhakar, assistant inspector general of forests.
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“State governments have the details about the types of encroachments in their respective states,” he added.