| Forest deptt takes aerial route, junior officers get top posts | | Minister 'honest' yet all goes wrong! | | *Guard is Forester, Ranger is DFO
Syed Junaid Hashmi
JAMMU, Jan 17: Chaos, Confusion and political appeasement in transfers and postings seems to have completely taken over the Forest department.
If the insiders are to be believed, the department is at the verge of collapse. Despite being headed by a senior National Conference (NC) leader Mian Altaf, who does have seemingly a clean image before Chief Minister Omar Abdullah; administrative discipline, seniority, cadre management, tenure and performance based postings have become thing of past. Transfers have become order of the day.
More importantly, it goes to the credit of Forest Department that most of the officers are working on posts which they cannot hold if their seniority is taken into account. Guards have been posted as Foresters, Foresters as Rangers, Rangers as Divisional Forest Officers (DFOs), Divisional Forest Officers (DFOs) as Assistant Conservators Forest (ACF), ACF as DCF and DCF as Conservator.
Officers of other departments in the Civil Secretariat have not begun saying, if you want to work on a higher post despite being ineligible, Forest Department is where you can get assignment of your choice. Data available on the website of Forest department brings out the fact that several guards are working as Foresters. This includes some who have recently joined the service.
They are looking after work in various ranges across Jammu region. Since the guards have been posted as Foresters, 114 ranges are being manned by foresters or Deputy Foresters. They have been posted as Incharge Range Officers. These include several Foresters who have been recruited in the last six years. They have not only been given the charge of ranges but provided with Drawing and Disbursing Powers.
Incharge Range Officers who are yet to be confirmed have been posted as Divisional Forest Officers (DFO). This is despite the fact that forest department has around 40 ACFs available with it alongwith a battery of senior officers who are qualified to be posted as incharge of various divisions. But forest ministry has shown no interest in them and instead, heeded to political requests from various corners while posting officers as heads of various divisions across the state.
A look at the data reveals that Bandipora Forest Division is headed by Range Officer Shabir Ahmed Bhat. Tangmarg Special Division is headed by DDR trained Incharge Range Officer Mehboob Ali. Peer Himayun Qadir is Grade-1 Range officer heading Lidder Forest Division. Similarly, Munshi Iqbal Lone, Devinder Pal Singh, Mohammad Ayoub Sheikh, Mohinder Kumar, Jugal Kishore, Rakesh Abrol, M.A. Gagroo, Sunil Singh, Mohammad Rafiq Bhat, Amarnath Bhagat, Mashood Ahmed, Mohammad Rafi Khan and Ram Rattan are all Range Officers but have been posted as heads of various forest divisions.
Of these, Mashood Ahmed is from Agriculture Department but he managed deputation in Soil Conservation Department and has now got into the cadre of Soil Conservation Department. He is presently, Project Officer, National Highway-1A Project Batote. In totality, 39 Incharge Grade-1 Range Officers are working as Divisional Forest Officers (DFOs) or Project Officers. Ask for the reasons and you are told that they have connections at the top.
Documentary evidence reveals that posting of Range Officers as Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) is surprising in the wake of the fact that the department has 56 officers of the rank of Assistant Conservators of Forests (ACFs) and 8 Deputy Conservator of Forests. According to the Forest Recruitment Rules, both are eligible to be posted as DFOs of various divisions.
But Government has preferred to bypass rules and regulations for the reasons better known to them. More surprising is the fact that this has happened in a department which is headed by Mian Altaf, a Minister whose public image is that of an honest politician. Such brute breach of rules has surprised even his admirers.
Officers have begun saying that forest department is for the first time facing a serious crisis of credibility. They maintain that if the happenings are not stopped immediately, the department is likely to crumble under its own weight. |
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