The Forest Department must ensure periodic monitoring of departmental schemes to facilitate a correct evaluation of the work progress and expenditure. State Forest and Wildlife Minister Dinesh Aggarwal said this while chairing a departmental review meeting on Tuesday.
The Minister said that many of schemes of the forest department were not being implemented properly due to which the intended benefit was not being enjoyed by eligible beneficiaries. Reviewing Humara Pedh Humara Dhan scheme, Aggarwal said that it was an ambitious scheme of the chief minister to benefit the common people. He directed officials to prepare the action plan for making this scheme more effective and to ensure greater public participation in 2016-17. The minister was informed that of the `6 crore provision made for the scheme, the State administration had approved a sum of `5 crore out of which `3.09 crore has been spent so far. Against a target of 1.53 lakh under this scheme, 1.68 lakh trees had been planted with the number of beneficiaries reaching 3,177. Reviewing rainwater collection, Agarwal directed officials to maximise number of varied water bodies to be constructed for recharging water sources in the mountainous areas. He was informed that the `75 lakh approved for this work had been spent on construction of 320 ponds and varied water bodies.
Regarding human-wildlife conflict, the minister said that monkeys and wild boars were causing problems across the State. He gave the department officials a period of three months to work on ridding the state of five lakh monkeys. Three monkey sterilisation centres are being developed in the State- in Haridwar, Nainital and Haldwani. With work in progress on the Haridwar centre, he directed officials to complete the task soon in Nainital and Haldwani. Regarding eco tourism, the minister directed officials to organise as many bird watching camps as possible at bird watching destinations to boost eco tourism.
Aggarwal said that it is essential to strengthen the rural economy in order to mitigate the migration of people from the mountainous areas to the plains. He said that animal husbandry is a major source of income in the mountainous regions but due to inadequate fodder, people are turning away from it. Regarding the Van Panchayat pasture development scheme, officials informed the minister that `380.68 lakh had been released through Compensatory
Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) to 198 Van Panchayats under the scheme in 2014-15 for developing 950 hectare pasture land. In addition to this, a pasture development plan costing `135 crore to be funded by State’s plan Budget. A considerable number of pasture lands will be developed in Van Panchayat areas in a period of five years, said the officials.