Devise comprehensive action plan for
rehabilitating degraded forests: Chief Secretary
Reviews implementation of
conservation measures for protection of lakes, wetlands
NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY
20: Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo, today chaired a meeting of the Forest,
Ecology & Environment Department to assess its functioning besides
reviewing the progress on ongoing conservation measures for protection of lakes
and wetlands in the Union Territory.
During the meeting,
the Chief Secretary directed the officers to frame a comprehensive action plan
based on scientific principles for rehabilitation of degraded forest areas within
a stipulated time frame.
To enhance the
efficiency of forest land management, the Chief secretary instructed the
officials to expedite the survey and demarcation of forest lands by installing
boundary pillars and digitizing the records. This step aims to effectively curb
encroachments and safeguard forest resources, he maintained.
Focusing on
afforestation efforts, Dulloo asked the department to accelerate the plantation
drives to meet the ambitious target of planting 1.5 crore saplings by the end
of the upcoming plantation season. He stressed that achieving this goal without
any delay was imperative for environmental sustainability. He emphasized the
need for ensuring maximum survival of planted saplings by adopting protective
measures, including fencing of reforested areas.
Highlighting the
ecological importance of wetlands, the Chief Secretary underscored their
crucial role in the ecosystem and called for rigorous conservation efforts. He
directed the officials to ensure proper demarcation and protection of wetlands,
along with improving water quality and other relevant parameters to enhance
their sustainability.
Regarding Wular
Lake conservation, the Chief Secretary instructed both the Principal Chief
Conservator of Forests (PCCF) and the Commissioner Secretary, Forests to
personally visit the site. They were asked to review the status of the ongoing
conservation works and devise a mechanism to accelerate their execution. He
observed that Wular Lake, being Asia’s largest freshwater lake, necessitates urgent
and effective conservation measures and has a scope of attracting a large
number of tourists.
Regarding the
conservation of Kishtwar High Altitude National Park, the Chief Secretary
emphasized the need for increased manpower and furthering efforts to achieve
tangible results. He pointed out that the scale of work required exceeds the
current workforce, necessitating moving of additional resources on the ground
for meeting the objectives set for its mitigation.
Additionally, the
Chief Secretary stressed the early approval and implementation of the
Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) in coordination with other departments. He
instructed for formation of an inter-departmental coordination panel
responsible for ensuring smooth execution of the plan by aligning available
funds with the envisioned schemes.
Commissioner
Secretary, FE&E, Sheetal Nanda, presented an overview of the functioning of
the department. She informed that besides protection and conservation of
forests, the department carries out rehabilitation of degraded forests, urban
area afforestation, maintenance of national parks and wildlife sanctuaries
besides looking after the wetlands, pollution control and biodiversity
conservation in J&K.
She also apprised
of some of the major achievements of the department registered during the past
year and the plans for years ahead regarding development of Biodiversity Action
Plan (BAP), plantation of around 1.5 crore saplings, demarcation of forest land
besides other works.
In his
presentation, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF), Suresh Kumar
Gupta, highlighted that the UT has a forest area of around 20,194 sq km (47.8 %
of Geographical area) with a tree cover of 151.8 million trees as per Draft ToF
Report, 2023.
Regarding the UT
level BAP, he informed the meeting that it establishes a general framework as
per the guidelines of the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA), on current and
future policies regarding conservation
and sustainable use of biodiversity.
The department wise
budget requirements have been worked out for eleven themes comprising 38
strategies involving a list of 161 activities. The overall budget by
dovetailing of resources across different schemes implemented by various
departments comes to Rs 187.8 crore per year upto 2030, he revealed.
Regarding
plantation programme, the PCCF divulged that a total of 81.27 lakh saplings had
been planted till January this year covering an area of 5703 ha. He further
revealed that an area of 2150 sq km (as on 2019) had been prioritized as
degraded forests, of which, 775 sq km had been treated during the last 5 years
and the balance area to be treated is 1,375 sq km with an additional support of
Rs. 78 crore per year for next 10 years. It was revealed that establishment of
Nagar Vans in 42 ULBs (out of 80) had been achieved with rest to be done in
coming years.
Regarding the
survey and demarcation of forest area, it was added that out of the total of
300853 Boundary Pillars (BPs), 142144 had been renovated/ reinstalled. It was
informed that survey of all the remaining BPs would be completed by December
2025 and the fixing of the same is set to be completed by March 2027.
The Chairman,
Pollution Control Committee, gave details of monitoring of lakes, wetlands, rivers,
ground water and other water bodies.
About Wular Lake
conservation, the CEO, WUCMA revealed that demarcation of 84 km long Wular
boundary has been completed with geo-tagged Boundary Pillars (1159 Nos). It was
further added that out of 44 Km of bund consolidation in encroachment prone
peripheral areas 11 km have been completed with a dredging of 5 sq km
critically silted area till date.
While discussing
the environment management plan of the Kishtwar High Altitude National Park, it
was projected that it includes Wildlife Mitigation Plan for Rs. 236.00 crore
(including 100 crore corpus), Catchment Area Treatment plan (CAT) for Rs. 44.00
crore and Biodiversity Conservation Management Plan for Rs. 18.00 crore.
The meeting was
apprised that the Department of wildlife protection looks after 10 other
wetlands in both Jammu and Kashmir divisions. These included Hokersar,
Shallabugh, Hygam, Mirgund, Chatllalum, Kranchoo, Manibugh, Freshkoori in
Kashmir and Surinsar-Mansar and Gharana wetlands in Jammu division.