Tirupati: Forest department needs staff to stop smuggling

TIRUPATI: Staff crunch in forest department helps smugglers run their business smoothly. There are almost 40 per cent of the positions lying vacant at the grassroot level of forest department. Mr Pawan Kalyan questioned about the red sander smuggling activity at an event to mark his party formation day on Wednesday at Guntur. The government should at least look into the issue. The negligence of the governments is clear.

Every Divisional forest officer will have Forest Range officer, Deputy Forest Range Officers and Forest beat officers etc. Beat officers play a key role in protecting wildlife and trees inside the forest. Each forest beat officer will look after almost 40,000 hectares of forest area which is around 40 square kilometres. Some of the beat officers are tired of having additional charge that extends their jurisdiction to 80 square kilometres.

A beat officer is responsible for any damage in his jurisdiction but practically, one man would not be able  to look after a stretch of 80 square kilometres area. The beat officers need to walk deep into the forest raising the question, how can one person look after so huge an area every day. There are incidents where the beat officers reportedly fought alone with the smugglers. They seek help from Vana Samrak-shana Samithi voluteers. But they help only around their village, but they can't help the officer in the core regions.

Speaking to DC, a beat officer, on condition of anonymity, said, "Officials keep on questioning us, whenever a smuggling activity is brought to light. Don't know how I can look after the entire 40 square kilometres of forest area alone. Six beat officers are carrying out the work of 10 men, this is an additional burden to us. Retirement is better than working with so much work pressure. They should first start recruiting. Everyone knows the smuggling activity can be carried smoothly in forests like Seshachalam".