Retired officials lay stress on research, conservation of forests

Hyderabad: Several retired officials of the Forest Department have stressed the need to give top priority to the research and conservation of forests in the State.

The retired officials were invited for a one-day seminar by the State Forest Department to take their suggestions and advice on various issues.

Officials from the SFD gave presentations to the retired officials on various schemes, projects, and efforts of the department.

Responding to the same, the former officials said it is heartening to see that the State government is giving a top priority for the protection and conservation of the forests.

They said that water is one of the key issues that led to the formation of the separate State.

It was against this backdrop that the State government has been taken steps to build various irrigation project resulting in the diversion of the forest lands.

Former Forest Official B S Rao asked the department to focus on the protection and conservation of the forest areas in the State. As part of this, he suggested giving top priority for the research wing of the forests.

This would help in developing the wild trees grow in Telangana. They also insisted on distributing only quality saplings during the Telangana Ku Haritha Haram (TKHH) programme.

Also, the former senior officials asked to give much focus on the afforestation activity taken up under CAMP funds. Similarly, they had also highlighted the use of available technologies for the protection of the forests.

However, the conventional method of foot patrolling by the beat forest officials would help a lot, they said.

Senior most Forest official T Krishna Murthy, Buchi Rami Reddy, BS Rao, B Somasekhar Reddy, S D Mukherjee, KDR Jayakumar, Omkar Singh.

Principal Chief Conservator of Forests P K Jha, PCCF's Prudhvi Raj, Sobha, Additional PCCF's Munindra, Lokesh Jaiswal, Dobrial, Swargam Srinivas and other officials participated in the seminar.