PARIVESH: Filing and Tracking Forest Clearance

Every forest clearance proposal in India is filed and tracked on PARIVESH — Pro-Active and Responsive facilitation by Interactive, Virtuous and Environmental Single-window Hub, run by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. Paper submissions to the division are a thing of the past; the file the officers see is the one you built on the portal.

What PARIVESH is

PARIVESH is a single window for four kinds of approval — forest (FC), environment (EC), wildlife (WL) and coastal regulation zone (CRZ). It carries the application forms, the document uploads, the payments, the scrutiny by each authority, the agenda and minutes of committee meetings, and the final letters.

The current version, PARIVESH 2.0, uses a common application form across the four approval types and a knowledge-based decision support system that flags overlaps with forests, protected areas and eco-sensitive zones from the coordinates you submit. In practical terms: the coordinates you upload are checked against the Ministry's own layers. If your KML is wrong, the portal itself will say so.

Registering as a user agency

The proposal is filed by the user agency — the department, company or authority that wants the land. Not by the forest department, and not by the consultant in their own name.

1. Create the user agency accountRegister on PARIVESH with the organisation's details and an email and mobile number that will stay reachable for years, not for the duration of one tender.
2. Complete the organisation profileAuthorised signatory, constitution documents, PAN and address. An incomplete profile blocks submission later, at the worst moment.
3. Start a new forest clearance proposalChoose the forest clearance module and the category that matches the project — linear, non-linear, mining, survey and exploration.

The application form and what goes with it

The forest clearance application is the form historically known as Form-A, now served through the common application form. It asks for the project, the land, the trees and the mitigation, and it is unforgiving about internal consistency.

• Project details — purpose, cost, justification, alternatives examined and why they were rejected.
• Land details — State, district, division, range, village, survey numbers, legal status of the forest, and the area in hectares to three decimals.
• Maps — the KML of the diversion area, toposheet extract, division and range map with the area marked, and the land schedule that matches them.
• Trees — enumeration by species and girth class, with the total count.
• Compensatory afforestation — the proposed land with its own KML, survey numbers and suitability.
• Certificates and undertakings — including the ones about no alternative alignment and about the cost of the mitigation works.

Our document checklist sets the whole list out in the order it is asked for.

How the proposal moves

Once submitted, the proposal travels through a fixed chain, and the portal shows you where it is sitting.

1. Divisional Forest OfficerSite inspection, enumeration check, and the DFO's report and recommendation.
2. Conservator and Chief ConservatorReview up the State forest hierarchy.
3. Project Screening Committee and Nodal OfficerState-level scrutiny and the State's recommendation.
4. Regional Office or the MinistryDepending on the area and category, the Regional Office decides, or the proposal goes to the Forest Advisory Committee at Delhi.
5. Stage-I, compliance, Stage-IIIn-principle approval with conditions, then the compliance report, then final approval.

How to check forest clearance status online

You do not need a login to follow a proposal. The public search on the PARIVESH site lets anyone look a proposal up.

1. Open the PARIVESH proposal searchGo to parivesh.nic.in and choose the forest clearance search, or use the FC site at forestsclearance.nic.in.
2. Search by proposal numberThe fastest route. The number looks like FP/KA/ROAD/123456/2026 — proposal, State code, category, serial, year.
3. Or search by State and districtFilter by State, district, category and date range when you do not have the number to hand.
4. Read the status trailThe record shows which authority holds the file, the date it reached them, every query raised, and the letters issued. This is the same trail the officers see.

What the status words mean

EDS: essential details sought

EDS is the query an authority raises when something in the proposal is missing, unclear or inconsistent. While an EDS is open, the proposal does not move — and the elapsed time generally counts against your compliance window, not the department's processing time.

The queries that come back most often:

• Area in the KML does not tally with the area in the form or the land schedule.
• The KML is malformed, in the wrong coordinate system, or covers a different patch.
• Tree enumeration does not match the DFO's site observation.
• Compensatory afforestation land lacks a suitability certificate or a clean title.
• Justification for the alignment, or the examination of alternatives, is thin.
• Legal status of the forest land is stated loosely.

Answer every point of an EDS in one reply, with the corrected document attached, rather than part of it quickly. A partial answer produces a second EDS and another wait.

Where we come in

We prepare the geometry and the paperwork that the portal and the officers are checking: the forest boundary from the records, the DGPS and drone survey, a KML that matches the land schedule to three decimals, the enumeration, the maps in departmental format, and the DPR. We also draft EDS replies for the user agency.

The forest boundary tool on our homepage lets you upload your own KML or KMZ and see immediately how much of it falls inside forest blocks, with the division, range and RF name. It is free and nothing is uploaded to us.

Frequently asked questions

This page is general information, not legal advice, and the rules change. Check the current position for your case on parivesh.nic.in and forestsclearance.nic.in, or ask us. Last reviewed 2026-10-15.