Kerala forest's softwood fund plan poorly utilised

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Kerala Forest Development Fund, instituted for maintaining softwood for industry and for research, is not only under-utilised, but also diverted for unintended purposes like the purchase of vehicles.  Nearly Rs 190 crore of the Fund has been left unutilised during the last five years. Utilisation, however, has been as low as Rs 10 crore. According to Kerala Forest Development Fund Rules, 60 per cent of the KFDF should be utilised for planting and maintaining softwood, and other species of trees which form raw materials for industries, and 40 per cent for forest research.  A main reason for the under-utilisation has been poor budgetary allocation.

“The budget proposals for activities related to the Fund the last five years were less than three percent of accumulated balance in the Fund,” a top Forest Department source said. There is inadequate allocation because funds for such activities are provided for in other heads of accounts, ignoring the existence of the Fund. The department has allocated nearly Rs '60 crore for two other heads of account – ‘Industrial Raw Materials’ and ‘pulpwood revolving fund’. “Since a specific fund has been created for the purpose of planting and maintenance of softwood and other species of trees, providing of funds in other heads from state plan could have been avoided,” the official said.

The funds for research activities are to be utilised for the projects approved by Kerala Forest Deve-lopment Fund Research Committee.  However, it has been found that the forest department has not ensured timely completion of research projects and utilisation of the research results for improvement of pulpwood plantations. It has been noted that 55 of the 75 reports that were to be submitted by the start of 2017 have not been submitted. Strangely, even the reports of the completed research works were not available for reference at the Central Forest Library.  Further, it was found that '36 lakh was diverted from the funds earmarked for forest research activities for the purchase of vehicles (non-research activities) without the approval of the Forest Development Fund Research Committee.