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| Education department brazenly loots forests, govt mum | | | GOPAL GUPTA
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, July 24: Forest department may boost of having a large contingent of Forest Protection Force to check cutting of trees, illegal felling and smuggling of timber is going on unabated due to alleged nexus between timber smugglers and officials of education department in Chenab region of Doda.
Not only verbal but written complaints have been lodged with the concerned officials but to no avail. Early Times has managed access to a complaint lodged by one Nisar Ahmed of Doda. According to his complaint, hundreds of standing green Pine and deodar trees in the forests of Doda have been illegally brought down and used in the construction of more than 200 School Kitchen sheds in various schools of education zone Gundna and in particular areas of Ghat, Doda and Bhagwah.
Whereas instruction were to use steel angles in the roofing, frames, doors and windows of Kitchen Sheds but officials of concerned zones in connivance with timber smugglers violated norms and allegedly asked their contractors to use timber which they promised to provide them at the site of construction.
Similarly over 200 kitchen sheds were taken up for construction in four zones of Doda and nearly 1000 scants of illegally extracted timber in connivance with timber smugglers was supplied in last two years to the contractors of Kitchen Sheds without seeking any permission from forest department Doda.
As per complaint, concerned ZEO's have already charged more than Rs. 3000 per kitchen sheds in cash from the contractors on the pretext that the amount is to be deposited with forest department Doda, but as per inputs from forest department, even a single penny has not been deposited in the account of the forest department on the part of education department or contractors, damaging ecosystem and loss of about 10 lakhs of rupees of revenue of forest department.
Forest officias said that acting on the complaint, they have twice in written communication vide his No: 839-43 Dtd: 12-5-2010 & No: 946 Dated: 18-5-2010 asked Chief Education Officer Doda to furnish list of kitchen sheds constructed in Zone Bhagwah, Zone Doda, Zone Ghat and Zone Gundna but till date CEO Doda has maintained criminal silence and has not issued the said list to the Forest Dept and is looking for escape route.
They further said that this is the biggest case of smuggling of forest timber at this scale in district Doda by education department Doda. They added that according to rough estimate more than 2500 Cft of timber has been illegally used in over 200 Kitchen Sheds in only four Zones of district Doda without any permission from this office.
They said that as soon the investigation will be completed, challan will be produced against involved officials of the education department as per forest law, but till date no challan or FIR has been registered by the forest department Doda. Taking serious note of the situation, different NGO's of Doda have expressed great resentment over the green felling, smuggling and illegal use of the timber at this large scale for the construction of School Kitchen Sheds which has created environmental degradation on one side and on the other hand is responsible for bringing environmental pollution by felling of green gold in this reach forest bound District.
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