Nayagarh: Even as the state government spends lakhs of rupees on afforestation, forest cover under Nayagarh division is said to be in tatters. Miscreants try out novel ways to smuggle out trees.
Timber mafia manages to escape in many cases as the authorities do not take proactive steps to check smuggling. Cutting of trees to accommodate interest groups and shifting cultivation by tribals are said to major reasons for loss of forest cover in the division.
Permission from the forest department is mandatory for cutting of trees. In a district where some forests are guarded by local village forest committee members, deforestation sends out a wrong message, locals said.
In such a situation, both revenue and forest authorities allegedly keep mum, on the alibi that lands under dispute do not belong to them. Similarly, cases are often pushed into cold storage in the name of investigation and administrative action, local intelligentsia raged.
Trees are massively felled and timber mafias cut off thousands of logs from under the nose of forest and revenue authorities. The state government loses revenue worth crores of rupees due to illegal deforestation activities here.
Worthy to note here that trees on 40 acres of forestland in tribal populated Pokharigochha area of Dasapalla block had been felled a few months back. The plant species felled in this region included sal, akashia, piasal, teak, kuruma, asana, kendu and many others.
However, trees were felled to carry out lemongrass plantation under the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGREGS) worth Rs 33,00,000 without having forest department’s permission.
After the incident came to the fore, forest authorities including Nayagarh District Collector Poma Tudu and local tehsil officials separately visited the spot and started investigations. Despite having sufficient proof, no action was taken against the wrongdoers.
Moreover, a stone-crusher unit operates at Mangalpur area of Sikrida panchayat under Khandapara block. It was alleged that trees which existed on four acres from the crusher up to Singipur were felled a few months back to facilitate transportation of stones from a nearby hill.
In another incident, huge quantities of sal trees were smuggled from Makarapalli reserve forest under Bahadajhola section of Odagaon forest range in three tractors. Even if the forest officials nabbed smugglers along with the tractors, the miscreants managed to take away the timber and seized tractors forcibly near Bandhabhumi.
Nayagarh Divisional Forest Officer and Odagaon Forest Ranger were present while this incident took place. The local forest department has lodged a complaint with Odagaon police. The inaction by the police has raised eyebrows of local people here.
Locals allege that irregularities are often buried under the ground by the intervention of local political leaders.