Khammam: Register cases under PD Act for felling trees in forests: Karnan

Khammam: District Collector RV Karnan has instructed the officials concerned to register cases under the Preventive Detention (PD) Act against those people, who are hunting wild animals and felling trees in forests. Strong action has to be taken against them for causing harm to forests and wildlife under the provisions of the Wildlife Protection Act and Forest (Conservation) Act, he said, speaking at the district-level forest and wildlife protection committee meeting held here on Wednesday.

Karnan has directed the forest officials to ensure that CCTVs are installed at all timber depots in the district. Notices should be issued to timber depot owners, who failed to install the CCTVs at their depots. Licences of erring timber depots must be cancelled, the Collector stated. All the owners of the depots have to maintain proper records of timber sales, he said, adding special focus has to be given on animal hunters in forests using electric traps. Fire extinguishers have to be made available to the forest staff for preventing spread of wildfires, he pointed out.

With reference to the decisions taken in the previous meeting, Karnan said that the Forest department was able to resolve disputes at five places of the 19 problematic locations in the district. Strict measures have to be taken to curb encroachment of forest lands and boundaries around forests have to be fixed. Vacant land along the NSP Canal would be handed over to the Forest department to develop the land as Model Park, the Collector mentioned.

Commissioner of Police Tafseer Iqubal speaking at the meeting asserted that the Police department would always be ready to protect forests and wildlife. He directed the police officials to geo-tag all CCTVs installed at timber depots in the district. Khammam Municipal Corporation Commissioner Anurag Jayanthi, Additional Collector N Madhusudhan, District Forest Officer Praveena, DRDO PD B Indumathi, ACP Prasanna Kumar and other officials were present.