Times
of India: Nagpur: Saturday, 21 November 2015.
The Nagpur
forest division has record of plantations taken up to increase green cover but
does not know whether these plantations are monitored or inspected by senior
officials. The fact has come to light under RTI Act 2005.
Siraj Patel,
central president, Maharashtra State Forest Guards, Forest Employees and Forest
Labourers' Union, taking a cue from failure of plantations worth Rs60 lakh by
joint forest management committee (JFMC) in Pitesur in Jamkandri range of
Bhandara division, had sought information from Nagpur division on number of
JFMCs, work done by them in 2013-15, percentage of successful plantations and
spot visits by deputy conservator of forest (DyCF) and assistant conservators
(ACFs) to monitor these plantations.
Information
under RTI received a few days ago by Patel stated that there were 517 JFMCs in
various forest ranges. It included Kondhali (62), Ramtek (36), Paoni (26),
Butibori (35), South Umred (38), Bhiwapur (16), Deolapar (29), Katol (60),
Hingna (39), Parseoni (24), Kalmeshwar (16), Narkhed (42), North Umred (37),
Kuhi (35) and Khapa (23). These JMFC were jointly monitored by villagers and
foresters. Works worth crores of rupees were done by the JFMCs under various
government schemes. These included water conservation, check dams, plantations
etc
Of these 517
JFMCs in the division, only 23 took up various works in 2013-14 while it was 25
in 2014-15. Patel said he had sought to know status of plantations till the
date of filing the RTI ie October, but information was given only till May
2015. He said information supplied for five-year (2010-2011) successful
plantations seemed fudged. Nagpur division claimed the trees planted by JFMCs
had 30-80% survival rate.
According to
Patel this was contradictory to an evaluation done by the forest department
itself for its 11 territorial circles. The success rate of Nagpur Circle
plantations in 2011 (three-year-old) was 8%, while 17% had partial success. As
many as 75% plantations had failed. The most shocking part is that the Nagpur
division public information officer (PIO) failed to supply information on spot
visits by DyCFs and ACFs concerned. This meant these senior officials never
visited the plantation sites.
Patel said
senior officials were hand-in-glove with the range forest officers (RFOs) and
hence did not report the plantation failures. "There is a log book where
details of forest officials' visit is supposed to be mentioned. It is
surprising how the information has been denied," he charged.
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