Forest department braces to protect green cover

Vikarabad: In a revelation that throws light on the sorry state of affairs in the district administration as regards protection of forest lands, it has come to light that as many as 43,000 acres of forest land has been found to be encroached, of which 11,000 acres under cultivation by farmers in several villages and another 18,000 acres were assigned to poor people by the revenue department.

The district has a green cover of around 1.06 lakh acres. Revenue officials reassigned the lands after they were denotified.No new notification was issued in the last 20 years. People from thandas and tribal areas resort to cutting trees to eke out a living. Besides, As cylinder prices are soaring, villagers are again going back to traditional ways of cooking.

As if this is not enough, there is lack of proper surveillance system, which is emboldening criminals and hunters to plunder forest wealth and wildlife respectively. It is learned that Manneguda, Thamagundam, and Tharuru areas see heavy hunting activity during weekends. Worried over the developments, the forest officials have started beefing up patrolling in the forest. They also deployed special check-up teams on Tandur-Chincholi road, Hyderabad-Bheejapur road and one at district borders. 

They arranged two check posts in Mominpet and Nawabpet mandals. These two check-posts are at present being supervised by Sangareddy police.The forest department is also planning to set up committees at village and mandal levels. Village committee would consist of a beat officer, sarpanch, police, and revenue staff as members, while Mandal committee also has the same number of people at mandal level from the same departments.

Officials are also planning to rope in services of students, teachers, and employees. Officials are collecting mobile numbers of enthusiasts among them. Whenever any fire accident or encroachment takes place, these members would pass on the message to the department and even help reach the spot in time.

Venumadhava Rao, the District Forest Officer, said that they are trying to set up five check posts along the borders of the district and stepped up patrolling for hunters. Intensified checks and combings are yielding results. He informed they filed as many as 128 cases and imposed Rs 20.93 lakh fine till the end of January.