State Forest and Wildlife Minister Dinesh Aggarwal has directed Forest Department officials to identify at least 250 villages across the State for developing an eco-tourism circuit and present their report in a fortnight.
Reviewing departmental works in Dehradun on Thursday, the Minister directed officials to ensure maintenance of forest resthouses. local unemployed people should be provided employment opportunities by developing villages near tourist destinations as eco tourism rest places for tourists.
Aggarwal directed forest officials to prepare a project for protecting agricultural land from wild animals. He directed the officials to send a letter to the Union Minister of Environment and Forests, seeking inclusion of the task of improving forest rest houses under Compensatory Afforestation Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) funds. It should be noted here that at present this task is not funded under CAMPA as there is no provision for it in the CAMPA guidelines. Reviewing the tree plantation work undertaken by the department the minister asked officials to provide information on plantation works undertaken in the past 10 years. He said that the department should develop nurseries in areas considering the tree species found in that specific area.
Reviewing the soil and water conservation works, the minister directed officials to build check dams to prevent land loss in forest areas. Regarding human-monkey conflict in urban areas, the minister told officials to implement the Chief Minister’s directions on this issue and take necessary measures for controlling the simian population.
Department officials were also told to speed up construction of walls to protect farms from wild boars in the mountainous regions and elephants in the plains with funding from NABARD. The Chakrata divisional forest officer was directed to stay two days a week in Chakrata, providing advance information to the locals to facilitate redressal of department related issues of the public.