The Government of Tamil Nadu has amended the Tamil Nadu Forest Act, 1882 by inserting Article 16-B which provides for the declaration of compensatory plantations as protected forests, and the Tamil Nadu Forests (Amendment) Act, 2025. It is planned to be called the law. Forest Minister K Ponmudi passed the bill in Parliament on Saturday.
Regarding the statement of purposes and reasons, the bill states that whenever forest land is used for purposes other than forestry, the user agency must provide the designated area of ​​land for the purpose of compulsory afforestation. Further, as per the guidelines issued by the Certified Compensatory Afforestation Center on January 24, 2023, the said compensatory afforestation land must be declared as a protected forest within the time limit specified by the Center.
However, the procedure for declaring land as protected forest (same as reserved forest) as provided in Sections 4 to 16 of the Tamil Nadu Forest Act, 1882 is complex and time-consuming. It was decided to establish special provisions based on the provisions of Article 16A of the Act in order to promptly declare compensation afforestation areas as conservation forests.
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Further, if land is to be constituted as a conservation forest under the Act, the government will have to issue two notifications. One is a declaration of intent under Section 4 of the Act and the other is to declare the land as a conservation forest under Section 16 of the Act. As the above requirement of issuing two notifications by the Government has resulted in considerable delay in the formation of Reserved Forests, there is a need to delegate the Government’s power to issue notification orders under Section 16 of the Act to the Forest Reserve Officers. It is thought that. By amending the provisions of the Act, the revenue department will not lower the rank of district collector, the bill was approved by Parliament, it said.
Congress also approved other bills. It also includes a bill to amend the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Act, 1978 by amending Section 4 to include an official of the rank of Permanent Secretary to the Government of the Ministry of Finance as one of its directors. board. This is necessary to deal with the increased financial responsibilities that boards have to handle, such as high bids, said Municipal Administration Minister KN Nehru, who introduced the bill.
Parliament passed the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Women (Amendment Bill) 2025 by Chief Minister MK Stalin to incorporate Section 7C. This allows for the issuance of a “protection order” restraining an accused individual from having contact with the woman he is accused of harassing. This bill would serve to prohibit any form of communication, whether personal, oral, written, electronic, telephone, or indirect, at the request of the victim. The proposed amendments also aim to include harassment by digital and electronic means.
The Penal Code (Tamil Nadu Amendment Bill), 2025, introduced by Prime Minister MK Stalin, was also passed. It aims to amend the People’s Republic of India, 2023 and Nagarik Suraksha Samhita, 2023 in its application to the State. The bill proposes to increase the harsh prison term for rape convictions from the current 10 years to a minimum of 14 years. If the rapist is a member of the police, they are calling for the minimum prison sentence to be doubled to 20 years. If the rape victim is a girl under the age of 12, the minimum sentence is life imprisonment and the maximum sentence is death.
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