Times
of India: Nagpur: Saturday, 14 March 2015.
After TOI
exposed the misuse of van-majoors for household chores, foresters are being
harassed by their senior officials to submit false reports stating the
van-majoors were working in their respective assigned workplaces. The officers
are also being threatened with suspension in case they failed to submit such
reports.
Meanwhile,
TOI has a list of 207 working van-majoors in the department of which almost
60-70 have been identified as working in bungalows of forest officers and doing
household works like washing and cleaning. The figures clearly indicate senior
officials hanging on to their illegal privileges and continuing to exploit
forest workers. Forest department had recently replied to a RTI query filed by
veteran forest union leader Siraj Patel that 42 van-majoors were working as
liftmen and guards at the principal chief conservator of forest (PCCF) building
that has only two lifts. The figures given in the list also matched the
information provided by the department in its reply to the RTI.
As per the
list, 16 van-majoors have been appointed at Seminary Hills garden while 13 have
been listed under Japanese Garden. However, TOI's visit to Seminary Hills on
Thursday brought to fore a different picture and highlighted the sorry state of
affairs due to lack of manpower. The reserve forest sees heavy trespassing on
daily basis and no-plastic zone is littered with plastic bottles, wrappers and
liquor bottles with nobody in sight to prevent it. It clearly indicates those
officially deployed here are being used elsewhere. Sources claimed most
van-majoors supposed to be in the area work at bungalows of various officials.
The forest
department on January 31, 2015, had issued a circular warning officials of
strict action against such misuse and exploitation of van-majoors. The issue
was also raised before forest minster Sudhir Mungantiwar two months back.
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