Very recently one divisional forest officer (DFO) of Odisha was booked for amassing properties worth crores of rupees disproportionate to his known sources of income.
His properties, both movable and immovable, are about 700 times more than what his lawful income should be. He worked for 27 years in the Forest Department of the Odisha Government, including seven years as DFO in different divisions of the State.
The DFO is a very responsible post, who is supposed to be the manager of nature and natural resources of a territorial division within his charge. He covers a revenue district and at times covers more than an area of a revenue district depending on the potentialities of the forest area. Strictly saying the DFO is a nature conservationist as well as a manager of natural resources of a division. He is supposed to manage and control the subordinates within a forest division for strict protection, conservation and welfare management of forest resources for the benefit of the people as a whole.
The State has recorded forest area of 58,137sqkm out of total land mass of 1,55,707 sqkm which comes to 37.34 per cent of total landmass and which also includes very dense, moderately dense and open forests.
Without forests no life is possible in the earth. The forest is ecology and man is a part and parcel of the nature’s built ecological system. But in this case, a most responsible conservator of forest wealth of a division becomes the browser of nature for his selfish motive.
How could this man acquire such wealthIJ It goes without saying that the entire administration of the Forest Department failed to gain the trust of the people. Now there is clamour in the entire globe for loss of ecology, which invites climate change threats. The tropical countries are most sufferers for such climate change and India is a part of this and also India is a victim of such disastrous climatic upheaval and loss of flora and fauna. Many schemes and plans are made globally and also nationally for conservation, protection and restoration of biosphere of the globe and of individual country and also of individual State.
As the forest is a State subject, there is no dearth of money in the State Budget for nature conservation and sustainable management of ecology and also side by side for generation of employment opportunity of the rural poor. In a State like Odisha, 70 per cent of people are residing in the rural areas, which are now victimized economically mostly by the unscrupulous politicians and Government servants. There is a hierarchy in the administration for perfect supervision and monitoring of public properties. If link fails, unscrupulous activities are galore.
In the DFO case, the administration has gone slack or acted as a poppet in his hand. Especially in the present context, there are several supervising officers above the DFO, who are supposed to scrutinize the official activities and characters of the DFO and without the approval of the higher-ups such types of financial involvement cannot be possible. It is expected that the crime detecting organisation of the State and the Government should intensively fight to bring out the malpractices and corruptions in the State Forest Department and bring to book all the offenders.
If public money and properties are looted in this manner, the poor and economically sick people will be deprived of their legitimate rights of existence. The unscrupulous forest employees and local politicians are hand-in-glove.
The scope for amassing money for the forest officials are (1) smuggling of valuable timbers and forests products, (2) illegal mining of minerals and precious metals, (3) forest land encroachments and privatisation of forest lands through illegal practices, (4) allowing mining owners the un-approved roots within the forest lands damaging the forest crops and growths for transporting the mining of minerals, (5) illegal removal of minor forest produce from forest, (6) smuggling of elephant tusks, horns and hides of wild animals, (7) smuggling of Kendu leaves from forests, (8) illegal hooch extraction from Mahua flowers within forest employees lands, (10) illegal cultivation of Ganja and opium cultivation within forest lands and their illegal trade, (11) siphoning of funds for wildlife management and checking forest fire, forestry development project, compensatory afforestation (CAMPA), MGNREGS, NRlH, (ANR), Amajangala Yojana (Ajy) and Joint Forest Management (JFM).
Over and above, the forest officers are promoted from forest guards to principal chief conservator of forest and empowered to handle the Odisha Forest Act 1972 and Wild life Protection Act 1972 and the rules to maintain law and order. Similarly the forest officers from assistant conservator of forests (ACF) onwards are made executive magistrates to trial cases of seizure of properties and confiscation of the same. Again the DFOs are empowered to sanction the prosecutions against the offenders for offences under the provisions of Odisha Forest Act and Wild life Protection Act. There is also scope of misuse of saw-mill and sawpit rules and timber transit rules for illegal money.
So a DFO has enormous powers and functions to execute for the cause of public services and if he wants to earn illegal money it is easy to do so. However, in doing so he becomes betrayer of public and hence, should be punished adequately.
So a vigilance cell should be set up in the Forest Department to locate the economic offenders.
(The writer is a former senior forest officer and an environmentalist. Tel no 9937460649)