The Ministry of Environment revealed that nearly 11.28 percent or 259700 hectares of forest area in Assam has been occupied by encroachers which is said to be the second-highest in the country.

The ministry was replying to a query filed under the Right toInformation Act by Akash Vashisht, a Ghaziabad-based legal activist on July 23,2019.

The Ministry replied to the activist's query on August which wasmade public by him on Friday.

The report says that Assam is behind Madhya Pradesh and just aheadof Odisha.

According to a report of Hindustan Times quoting AssistantInspector General of Forests, AK Pravakar said, "We have only compiled theencroachment data shared by state with us. These are not the latest figures."

He also said that the state governments have the details about the types of encroachments in their respective states.

"The forest department continues to treat tribals and forest dwellers as encroachers. However, the largest encroachment due to illegal forest diversions for projects, commercial monoculture plantations, huge land banks get ignored," said Tushar Dash, a researcher with Community Forest Rights —Learning and Advocacy (CFR-LA).

According to CFR-LA's Promise and Performance report of 2016, Assam, Bihar, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Uttarakhand were among laggard states when it came to implementation of the Forest Rights Act; Maharashtra, Odisha, Kerala, and Gujarat were the better performing states.