M A I N   N E W S

HP’s go-ahead for tree felling
From Rakesh Lohumi
Tribune News Service

SHIMLA, Jan 20 — Plagued with perennial financial crisis, the fund-starved Himachal Government has finally given the go-ahead for felling of green trees. The decision is likely to double the state’s forest revenue from the next financial year.

The decision to lift the 16-year-old moratorium on felling of green trees was taken by the Cabinet last month. Felling will, however, be carried strictly in accordance with the forest working plans for each division duly approved by the Centre as laid down by the Supreme Court. As a result over one lakh cubic metres of additional timber will be extracted from the state’s forests annually. At present, on an average about two lakh cubic metres of timber was being extracted by working the fallen and damaged trees under salvage markings. Besides, another 1.10 lakh cubic metres was allotted to right-holders under the timber distribution rules.

With this the annual forest revenue from felling of trees will shoot up from the present Rs 50 crore to over Rs 100 crore. Felling is carried out by the Himachal Forest Corporation which pays royalty to the Forest Department.

The government has over the past four years already taken Rs 650 crore from the corporation as advance royalty to tide over the financial crisis. The corporation in turn raised the amount from the market by floating seven year SLR bonds. Given the low rates of loyalty, this advance will not be adjusted over the next decade even after allowing green tree felling.

The proposal to allow green tree felling has been under the consideration of the successive governments for the past over five years. In fact, the ban was lifted when the state was under President’s rule. However, actual felling of green trees could not take place as an elected government assumed office before the decision could be implemented at the field level.

The Congress government which came to power reversed the Governor’s decision and reimposed a ban on green tree felling. However, faced with a severe financial crunch it also seriously considered the proposal to allow green tree felling subsequently, but the Supreme Court’s order that green tree felling could be carried out only in accordance with the forest working plans duly approved by the Centre. At that time out of the 38 forest divisions working plans had been prepared only for four divisions which made it impossible for the department to go ahead with the proposal.

Thereafter, the department realised the importance of working plans and took the job on a war footing over the past two years working plan for 14 more divisions have been prepared and got approved from the Centre. Besides, working plans for two divisions were awaiting approval and five more plans were under scrutiny. Over the next one year 26 working plans would be approved.The working plan is most important for management of forests on scientific lines. It lays down the rule for silvicultural felling which ensure optimum growth of forests. Besides old trees for which the mean annual increment has started declining are felled under silvicultural felling to pave way for natural regeneration of forests. Similarly, the thinning of new plantations is also carried out to provide ideal conditions for the growth of young trees. Silvicultural felling had been given a go-by the department ever since the moratorium on green tree felling came into force.Forest officers point out that green tree felling will have to be mostly carried out in pine, fir and spruce forests. Not many deodar and kail trees available for felling as these are allotted to villagers under timber distribution rules in large numbers.The officers feel that after allowing green tree felling the government should also revise the rates of royalty which were very low. For instance, the department got only Rs 4000 per cubic metre as royalty for deodar, the most precious timber species, which fetched Rs 30,000 per cubic metre in the market. The royalty should be at least 40 per cent of the market cost.