The Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat pulled up forest department officers for the lack of preparedness for tackling forest fires in the state. He asked the officers to explain why results were not visible if the preparations were okay. Rawat also told all the district magistrates that they will be answerable for forest fire incidents in their respective districts. The CM said this while chairing a meeting to review the status of forest fires in the state on Wednesday.
Addressing officials, Rawat directed all district magistrates to take effective steps for tackling forest fires. He also pulled up the forest department nodal officer for forest fires, BP Gupta and the Pauri divisional forest officer and directed them to improve their working. The CM further directed that efforts for tackling forest fires and the results achieved should also be mentioned in the performance appraisal reports of divisional forest officers. He said that the district magistrates and forest department should involve the local community in the efforts as effective protection of forests can be achieved with the help of the local people. Rawat also expressed dissatisfaction at only 50 per cent budget being released out of the total provisioned budget of Rs 12.37 crore for forest fire mitigation. Pulling up the forest department officers he asked for when were they saving the money while forest fires were raging at present. He directed that the remaining budget should be released immediately for the districts. All the district magistrates should make full use of the disaster management machinery and funds available for disaster management. All the districts have been provided with Rs five crore each for disaster management and 10 per cent of this fund can be used or purchasing necessary equipment. Rawat stressed that forest fires are not an issue concerning only the forest department. Full efforts should be put in to tackle this problem with inter-departmental coordination, he said.
The forest department should not wait for the rainy season and step up its efforts against forest fires right now. Alertness should be maintained even in the districts from where no active fires are being reported. The nodal officer for forest fires informed that till now a total of 776 incidents of forest fires affecting a total of 1271 hectares had been reported. Additional chief secretary Ranvir Singh, principal secretary Radha Raturi, secretaries Amit Singh Negi, Radhika Jha, Arvind Singh Hyanki, additional secretary Ashish Kumar Shrivastav and forest department officials were also present in the meeting.