The Baleswar Sawmill Owners’ Association has demanded licences for more numbers of sawmills in the district stating that in the want of an adequate number of mills people in the rural pockets are facing a tough time to get timber and wood and on the other hand unauthorized mills are operating in the district.
Association secretary Prabodh Kumar Parida said that in the district only seven sawmills which are established in the industrial estates are operating with licences and the rest are operational without licences in the rural areas.
He said in these two patches one at Somnathpur and other at Panpana, seven sawmills with licences are operational.
Reports said in the district about 80 sawmills are operational without licences which are frequently raided.
“Since only in two places the sawmills are located the people from remote rural patches including Bhograi,Jaleswar, Baliapal, Simulia , Oupada and Khaira face a tough time to cut or collect timbers for various needs. Therefore, in the rural area sawmills are operating illegally which are raided from time to time ,” said Parida in a media brief.
According to him, prior to 2002 in the State 559 sawmills were operating legally and after that several sawmills were closed following an order of the Supreme Court which stated that sawmills within 10 km radius of any forest will not be operational.
However, subsequently it was decided to give licence to the sawmills in industrial areas close to divisional forest officers.
“Timber and wood are essential requirements in our day today life . In order to mitigate the problems, the Government should make arrangement for setting up sawmills under each panchayat or at least each block,” demanded Parida.
He further suggested that the Government should make a policy that anyone interested in setting up a sawmill should plant at least 1,000 trees in Government lands and look after them for 5 years and use them for their sawmills. By which all the issues including afforestation and environment protection would be solved.