All permissions to go online: N Prateep Kumar

Amaravati: The forest department will introduce online system for all permissions regarding all forest produce, sale, cutting of wood, transportation and others to prevent corruption.

Principal chief conservator of forests N Prateep Kumar, who is also head of Forest Forces, told The Hans India that the online system will make it easy for people to obtain permission for various needs without making rounds to forest department offices.

He also said that the department will establish forest stations, like police stations to protect forest produce. Observing that there was corruption in the department from granting permission to cut the trees, transportation, value addition and finally before selling the produce in the market.

To change this situation, it has been decided to introduce permissions online. Prateep Kumar revealed that Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy suggested that value be added to red sanders instead of selling it as a raw logs as was done by the previous government. The state is now sitting on 5,000 metric tonne of seized red sanders.

The principal chief conservator of forests pointed out that a study revealed that whenever the government did not auction the red sanders, there was a spurt in seizures. There has been a drastic fall in number of red sanders seizures since 2014-15 when the state began regular sale of the precious wood.

"Average sale from the year 2005-06 to 2018-19 is about 900 metric tonne a year. The study further revealed that the market demand of red sanders wood is about 1,000 MT per year. Hence, the department is planning to get permission from the ministry of environment, forests and climate change, Govt of India and also from Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) for sale of 1,000 MT per year for the five financial years," Prateep Kumar said.

He opined that if the government sold the red sanders as per the market demand, then it will be easy to control illegal activities in forest areas. China and Japan are the major destinations of export from Andhra Pradesh for the red sanders.

Prateep Kumar also said that the Chief Minister had given permission to fill all vacancies in the department. There are around 2,300 vacancies in the department and all will be filled in the ensuing notification.