For exploitation of minerals, we have lost very rich Sal forests of Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj, Sundargarh, Jajpur and in undivided Koraput district. It is impossible to regain the greenery.
Now forest management does not advocate commercial exploitations of forest; it gives importance to conservation of nature and natural resources for protection of environment and climate changes.
Forest means the habitats of large numbers of flora and fauna of the nature. In spite of such conventions, the Odisha Forest Development Corporation ltd (OFDC) with support of the State Forest Department is planting trees on commercial grounds in many forest divisions, where tree felling is prohibited on silvicultural grounds.
The writer worked as Divisional Manager in the OFDC for long five years and whatever experiences he gathered through his service, he knows how bad economic management over the years have rendered the corporation sick.
It is unfortunate while policies made for the sound management of a corporation or industrial body are good in themselves, their implementation is always bad. No corporate body can remain sound if it is dominated by politicians as its institutional head. In our State, politics means vote bank politics. Unsuccessful politicians are appointed as heads of various corporations to rehabilitate them by the ruling party, probably to offset the loss they incur in polls. So the aims and the objectives of each corporation and industry run by the State Government utterly fail. Directly or indirectly, the ruling party of the State is responsible for setback of each corporate body.
During post independence period, there was acute unemployment problem in the whole country as well as in Odisha and there were plenty of natural resources, which lay unutilized. So the bureaucrats and technocrats planned to form State owned corporate bodies, small scale and large scale industries for proper utilization of raw materials from nature and utilization of human resources of the State. For a few years all the corporations and industries were managed efficiently and the result was that they were all viable profitable ventures. Their major products were marketed. Gradually every corporation in the State became over staffed due to constant interferences of political people and also the low quality of management. Corruption in the all level became rampant and the corporations and PSUs ran sick and unviable.
There were 140 corporations and different companies in the State and out of such figure now 76 companies and corporations become either dead or were in dying condition and the existing companies are now unable to pay salaries to their staff. All these corporations and companies are almost insolvent and existing on Government loans each year.
The loanee companies are now running in the State entirely for political reasons. The Accountant General of the State rightly pointed out and suggested five years back to wind them up. The general public always trusts the Government, whichever political party it may be for proper and efficient management of public funds and public properties but in such cases, the Governments have always failed to rise up to expectations. In every such case, there is a board to watch the management and run the corporate profitably but still there is no improvement.
There are several forest based corporations and industries in the State like the OFDC, the Odisha State Mining Corporation, the Tribal Development Corporation, the Odisha Wood Production ltd, the Rajendra Paper Mill, the Odisha Oil Industries, the Sea Food ltd, etc. All such institutions run by the Government are in moribund state despite there are plenty of forest based raw materials in the State. There are several audits of their accounts to assess loss and profit, yet these companies are running without profit. No private undertaking can run its business without profit and afford to become a loaner. Because these public undertakings are run by the State Government, political whims play a great role. If they were private undertakings, the loaners would be put in jails and their properties would be attached for nonpayment of loans.
Here, the writer wants to cite an example of the OFDC, which was formed during early seventies for scientific management of forests and commercial exploitation of old and unsound trees for trade and also to save the forest resources from unscrupulous forest traders and forest contractors. This organization could run profitably for considerable period, but suffered much from financial point of view after some years due to over staffing and rampant corruptions and political interferences. Similarly is the case of the Similipal Development Corporation, which was ultimately liquidated with the OFDC. As far as the writer remembers, during 1991-92, the TATA Company was given responsibilities to assess the reasons of financial failure of the OFDC, which opined over staffing as prime reason of loss the Government undertaking. The advice of the TATA Company could not be worked out due to political reasons. At present, many branches of timber products and timbers are seized to make up for heavy financial losses of the OFDC. Now this corporation survives only for trade of kendu leaves and is doing plantations in cities and in different Governmental and non-Governmental organizations. If the tobacco deal is stopped in the country, this public undertaking will perish at any movement. The PC system is very active in the public undertaking as well.
(The writer is a former senior forest officer and an environmentalist. Tel no 9937460649)