The Uttarakhand Governor Krishan Kant Paul has ordered formation of a five-member high powered committee to study causes of this year’s forest fires in Uttarakhand along with the ecological and other aspects. The Governor held detailed discussion with the advisory council on Monday afternoon before taking the decision to constitute the high powered committee headed by retired IAS officer Vibha Puri Das.
According to information provided by Raj Bhawan, the high powered committee will undertake a detailed study of this year’s forest fires in the State, reasons for its occurrence, its ecological and other related aspects. This committee will then submit its report along with its recommendations.
Experts connected to the spheres of forests and environment have also been included in the high powered committee with one representative each from the Wildlife Institute of India and Forest Research Institute along with the additional chief secretary, forests, representing the State administration will be members of the committee in which the additional secretary, forests, will be the secretary of the committee.
According to information provided by the State authorities, as per information received till May 9, the total number of incidents of forest fires was placed at 1,832 with the resulting affect on 4,022 hectare land area estimated to have cost an evaluated loss of Rs 41,50,225.
It is pertinent to mention here that after raging across the state since February, forest fires were extinguished securely following rainfall in all the 13 districts of Uttarakhand last week.
According to information provided by the forest department, since the start of the forest fire season on February 15, the maximum number of forest fire incidents were reported from Pauri district where 365 reported incidents affected 949.75 hectare area estimated to have caused evaluated loss of about Rs 8,16,725. Similarly during this period, Dehradun district had 158 reported forest fire incidents affecting 318 hectare land causing evaluated loss of Rs 2,45,425 whereas 209 incidents were reported from Chamoli district affecting 454.45 hectare land area causing evaluated loss of Rs 5,40,625. The least affected district, Udham Singh Nagar saw a total of only 14 forest fire incidents being reported affecting 13 hectare land area resulting in evaluated loss of Rs 7,875.