(1)

In these rules, unless the context otherwise requires,-

(a) "Act " means the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act, 2016 (38 of 2016);

(b) "annual plan of operation " means the annual plan for physical activities and financial provisions approved by the National Authority or State Authority as the case may be, which describes milestones, conditions for success and explains how, a strategic annual plan will be put into operation during the financial year in given budgetary term, and containing inter alia, brief description, estimated cost, basis for cost estimation, agency identified for execution and time schedule of each activity to be executed from State Fund during a year;

(c) "Form " means a form appended to these rules;

(d) "section " means a section of the Act;

(e) "third party monitoring " means monitoring and evaluation of works executed from National Fund and State Fund by the parties which are external to a project's direct beneficiary chain and management structure having no conflict of interest on parameters of evaluation as determined by the National Authority over and above the baseline to assess whether desired social, environmental or other impacts are being achieved and undesirable impacts avoided;

(f) "Village Forest Management Committee " means a committee constituted for joint forest management by the competent authority in the State;

(g) "working plan " means the management plan of forest land prepared and approved by the competent authority under the National Working Plan Code published by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change for sustainable management of forests and biodiversity in India;

(2)

The words and expressions used and not defined in these rules but defined in the Act, the Indian Forest Act 1927 (16 of 1927), the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972 (53 of 1972), the Forest (Conservation) Act 1980 (69 of 1980), the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 (18 of 2003) and the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (2 of 2007) and the rules made under these Acts, shall have the meanings respectively assigned to them in those Acts and rules.