HP loses 2.5 cr to mystery fires
From Rakesh Lohumi
Tribune News Service

SHIMLA, Sept 27 — Investigations into the mysterious drying up of over two thousand full grown trees in Kheer Ganga forest under Parbati division three years ago have led to the uncovering of a major scandal and revealed the modus operandi of how officials have been plundering the state's precious forest resources in the garb of "salvage markings".

There is a complete ban on green fellings in the state and only trees damaged by natural calamities can be harvested by the Forest Corporation. The Kheer Ganga forest was worked under salvage markings from 1993 to 1995. However, within months the field staff of the department came up with a list of another 2197 dry trees from the same forest to be handed over to the corporation under salvage lots.

The Divisional Forest Officer prepared a proposal and submitted it to the conservator of forests, Kulu in December 1996. The latter deputed an Assistant Conservator of Forests to ascertain if such a large number of trees had actually dried up. He also wrote to the Forest Research Institute, Dehradun in May 14, 1997 to investigate the cause of drying up of the trees and simultaneously asked the DFO to inspect the forests. In his report submitted on May 26, the DFO stated that the trees had dried up because of a fire which occurred sometime in 1995. The exact date of the fire could not be ascertained as nothing had been recorded in the fire register.

Apparently, the field staff concealed the incident with ulterior motives as a big fire, which scolded over 2000 trees, could not have gone unnoticed. Further, the conservator decided to hand over the salvage lot to the corporation on May 29, without waiting for the response of the Forest Research Institute, indicating that the request made to it for investigating the cause was overlooked.

Another intriguing aspect of the affair is that the deputy ranger concerned used his personal hammer for marking the trees, instead of the special hammer required under the rules. The DFOs have to procure special hammers each year from Aligarh, which are later destroyed to prevent their misuse for felling trees unauthorisedly.

The undue haste in which the lot was allotted indicated that the officials of the department and those of the forest corporation were in league. The department completed the marking of trees on August 28, 1997 and the corporation allotted the felling work on September 1, 1997. Normally it takes months to complete the process of inviting tenders. Obviously, the officers of the corporation did not observe the codal formalities in this case.

In all the standing volume of the trees, mostly of fir, spruce and kail worked out to over nine thousand cubic metres valued at around Rs 2.5 crore.

A senior officer of the department admitted that the functioning of the corporation, which was set up to eliminate unscrupulous forest lessees, had proved even worse. Such mysterious fires broke out when felling was carried out by contractors.The corporation had done nothing beyond replacing forest lessees with numerous labour supply mates. Worse the forest lessees at least bought felling lots in open auction whereas labour supply mates were allotted work without even observing the codal formalities at the instance of politicians, he lamented.

There have been numerous instances in which green trees had been felled. In December 1996 green felling of oak trees was noticed in the Sundernagar division. However, the department despite the total ban on felling of oak, took no action against the errant officers.

There have also been cases of undervaluing of produce. Last year the flying squad of the department intercepted five trucks carrying good quality "samudah hakris" officially shown as pulpwood. The difference between the price of the two is over Rs 500 per cubic metre.