Bhanjanagar: The North Ghumusar forest division here in Ganjam district has planned to develop small villages under its jurisdiction through the creation of Agri based jungles which in turn will help check migration, a report said Saturday. The matter came to the fore during a review meeting of various schemes funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) on Lalsingh nursery premises in Bhanjanagar, Friday.
Presiding over the meeting, divisional forest officer (DFO) Sudarshan Behera said that 100 Vana Suraksha Samitis (VSSs) will be developed during the next financial year. Behera said that unused land will be put into use through agroforestry on 350 hectare of land. “To create the jungle, all assistance will be provided to the people. This will help raise the financial strength of the villagers and keep the environment safe,” he added.
Moreover, necessary saplings required for the creation of jungle will be prepared in the nursery while power supply will be made available to non-electrified villages under elephant corridors either through solar lights or through power cables. “People are migrating to other states for work due to many reasons but efforts will be made to bring them back to their villages and provide them work under various schemes. The poverty alleviation scheme Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) will also be implemented in all villages to provide a livelihood to the villagers,” Behera said.
Plans will be taken up to develop small villages and check dams will be built to provide irrigation facilities to farmlands and water to the villagers. Members attending the meeting proposed to invite two members from two VSSs each to the next meeting and solicit their response. The DFO said that the actual beneficiaries should be given loans from JICA while those who have taken loans from several agencies should be excluded.
Meanwhile, efforts are on to install two mobile towers in Banta area to provide mobile network coverage to over 10 villages in the region. This has become possible after the Forest department wrote to Union Telecom Minister Aswni Vaishnaw. People will reap the benefit in the coming days while the cooperation of the Union minister and the district administration will be sought for the installation of similar towers in areas lacking proper mobile network coverage. ACF Bikram Dev Pattnaik, IFS officer Kumar Behera, Mujagarh ranger Bimbadhar Sahu, Jagannathprasad ranger Umakant Das, Galeri ranger Shibaram Nayak also attended the review meeting.