RAJAHMUNDRY: Even as the state government is planning to develop the AP forest academy in the reserve forest area in Rajahmundry, the forest authorities are apprehensive about an exemption from the Centre for payment of “net present value” to develop the academy as the earmarked area will be used for non-forest activities such as training of forest staff.
In the aftermath of bifurcation, the existing forest academy in Hyderabad was allotted to Telangana state leaving Andhra Pradesh with no academy. After pondering over several months as to where the forest academy for AP to be set up, the state zeroed in on the reserve forest area located at Diwan Cheruvu along NH-16 near Rajahmundry and accordingly, the forest authorities identified 39.19 hectares to develop the academy.
But the state government has yet to get environmental clearance from Union ministry of environment and forests to develop the academy on the designated site. The forest authorities are not sure whether they will get exemption from MoEF for payment of net present value for availing the site in the reserve forest area.
This will be used for non-forest activities such as construction of administrative blocks, conference halls, training centres to train the forest personnel like field officers and range officers even in weapons apart from administrative activities and construction of residential quarters for the staff.
The prevailing land value at the reserve forest area ranges from Rs 7.5 lakh to Rs 16 lakh per hectare. If the Centre fails to give any exemption from payment of net present value, the state forest authorities have to pay a huge amount of money for the requisite clearance to go ahead with development of forest academy.
Forest authorities say the development of the academy has been delayed for a long time resulting in lack of a facility to train either the existing or newly recruited forest personnel on various administrative skills. They say the lack of training will affect efficiency of field-level forest personnel.
Moreover, when the AP government wanted to train forest personnel in the academy allotted to Telangana state government, the latter reportedly wanted to charge a huge amount to train each officer and this resulted in the withdrawal of the proposal by the AP government officials.
A senior forest official on condition of anonymity said, “The file pertaining to the setting up of the AP forest academy is moving fast in the MoEF as we had submitted all the requisite details recently. However, we were hinted that we may not get exemption of NPT to set up the academy and we fear that it may cause further delay in setting up the academy in the state.”
