At the time when there is unanimity on increasing forest cover to preserve environment, Himachal forest department is still relying on more than a decade old data of forest cover and has no current data of what is total forest cover in the State at present.
The revelation was made during a written reply by Forest Minister Thakur Singh Bharmouri on a question asked by BJP MlA Bikram Singh who wanted to know the current status of forest cover in the State and its total value.
In his reply, the Forest Minister said that the State has forest cover of over 37,033 square kilometre and in May 2000 Indian Institute of Forest Management at Bhopal had done a survey to assess the total forest cover.
“The institute also conducted a valuation of forest wealth which was found to be Rs40,860 crore,” said Bharmouri adding that valuation of Khair tree
found abundantly in the State was not exclusively done which the MlA wanted to know.
On the demand of BJP MlA Mahendar Singh about the specification and methodology adopted by the forest institute to conduct the forest cover survey, the Minister said he would look into it and assured that efforts will be made to assess the valuation of Khair tree.
Minister also informed the House that from 2009 to 2012, the State forest department had earned revenue of Rs3.52 crore by selling Khair species of trees and that was not due to green felling which has been banned after the Supreme Court ruling.
“The Khair trees have a life span of 25 years which are sold in the market by the depots of forest department are the trees which have fallen on their own,” said Bharmouri.