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Madhya Pradesh which has largest forest cover in India sprawling across 94,689 sq km, ironically, is poorly managed. Illegal felling constitutes 83% of the total forest offences in Madhya Pradesh where 327,912 forest offences have been registered between 2008 and 2012.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India in its Economic report 2013 for non-PSUs (public sector undertakings) has observed that state does not have sufficient efficacy mechanism to prevent, detect, register, investigate, dispose and monitor forest offences.
"As per the annual report on forest offences prepared by the principal chief forest conservator of forest (PCCF) 16.73 lakh (1.673 million) trees were felled, 132,845 hectare of forest land encroached (upon), 13,970 hectare of area was illegally mined, while 157,000 hectare area was affected by forest fire during the 2008 to 2012," the CAG in its report said.
It also pointed that during the period of 2008-2012, an expenditure of Rs 94.64 crore was incurred for protection of forest and detection of forest crimes, under the schemes Intensification of Forest Management (IFM) an amount of Rs 44.87 crore and Rs 49.77 crore on strengthening of administration.
"Substantial increase noticed in encroachment (by 213%) though there was decrease in poaching, illegal mining and forest fire during the last five year period ending December 2012. We observed that the trend of various forest offences was not reviewed and reasons thereof analysed by the department for improvement in management and prevention of forest offence cases except once in 2008. The department did not however prepare any offence specific action plan to deal with the increased in forest offences," the CAG report further pointed out. It also said, "APCCF stated in July 2013 that subordinate offices had been instructed from time to time fro for control of offences. The reply is however silent about any plan of action for better management of forests."
The CAG had found that the department procured 1,694 wireless sets (handsets, fixed sets and mobile sets), of which 862 were not in working condition. Besides, the CAG said, license fee and royalty due according to Indian Telegraphy Act (ITA) was not paid regularly to the government of India. And that government of India had issued notices to the department (of forest) for payment of accumulated dues amount to Rs 31.98 crore.
"PCCF stated (September 2013) that due to non-payment of license fee and royalty, renewal and repair of old wireless sets was not possible and efforts were being made to restore wireless system. In view of the fact that communication is a vital instrument in controlling forest offences, the government should take necessary steps to repair/restore the wireless system," the CAG report said.
The report has pointed out that there was shortfall of 3,870 personnel in working strength of the posts of range officers (382), deputy ranger (185), forester (450) and forest guard (2,853). Shortage of manpower resulted less inspection and non-processing of the satellite data and getting it verified through field staff.
On insufficient management of forest through patrolling , the CAG pointed out that state budget had provision for hiring of vehicle for patrolling in sensitive beats.
"We noticed that the total cases (except Chhindwara west and Sagar South) had increased from 10,795 in 2011 to 11,866 in 2012," the CAG report said. On registration of offences the CAG has observed non-submission of preliminary offence report to divisions, lack of uniformity in formats used for forest offence case register, delay in registration of the cases and non-registration of offence cases of girdling.
