State Forest Minister Dinesh Aggarwal formally extended the State Forest Department’s 24-hour centralised cloud call centre service — Van Mitra — to the entire State. Now citizens across the State will be able to inform the department on any forest or wildlife related matter and also upload picture and videos of any related incident through the call centre or website.
The Minister extended the service at a programme held in Ramnagar forest rest house while also releasing stickers and cards with messages and the call centre number.
It will be recalled that last year in August, the Kumaon circle of the Forest department had launched the centralised digital telephonic call centre service Van Mitra accessible 24x7x365 on 9208008000 for registering any information or complaint related to forest and wildlife.
Information received by Van Mitra is relayed on real time basis to the departmental officials concerned. Considering its success, this service was extended by the forest minister to all forest divisions and protected areas of the state on Friday. According to the department, up to 300 people can use this facility at the same time.
The first such facility opened by any forest department in India, this fully automated call centre service also has real time voice mail SMS delivery facility. A caller can select the specific forest division and issues like illegal tree felling, poaching and encroachment among others before registering his or her information after a beep and press the hash button after concluding the report. After the information is registered, voice mail SMS will be sent automatically to the sub divisional officer, divisional forest officer and chief conservator of forests of the area concerned to enable swift action.