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In response to allegations that the Maharashtra Government is bent on removing forest cover in the name of development, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said that forests should be saved and there is no question about it.
"Forests should be saved and there is no question about it," Fadnavis said while responding to a reporter who said that former Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has alleged that the state government is removing forest cover in the name of development. Fadnavis further claimed that when he was the Chief Minister, Maharashtra was the only state in which there was an increase in forest coverage. "From 2014 to 2019 when I was Maharashtra's Chief Minister, if you look into the 2020 report published by the country's forest department, you will see that Maharashtra is the only state in which there has been an increase in forest coverage. In Maharashtra, we have tried to increase forests," he said. According to the Forest Survey Report 2021, the three top states that showed an increase in forest cover were Andhra Pradesh (647 sq km) followed by Telangana (632 sq km) and Odisha. Area-wise, Madhya Pradesh had the largest forest cover in the country followed by Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Maharashtra. (ANI)
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