Hyderabad: Chief Minister K Chandrashekar has seriously warned that his government will act very firmly with iron hand in protecting the forests and will revoke PD Act on wood/Timber smugglers in the State. He said the Intelligence wing was involved in identifying those who illegally fell the forests and smuggle timber/wood.
The Chief Minister instructed the Forest department to appoint officers of highest integrity, commitment and dedication in forest areas to protect the forests. He also said check-posts will be set up in large numbers in the forest areas to see that not even a small piece of wood can be taken out of forest illegally.
The CM has instructed the department to form joint flying squads comprising of armed police and police officials. He said these squads, in addition to continues checks, should keep an eye on all routes to and fro to the forest areas. He said District Collector, Superintendent of Police and DFO together should evolve an action plan to protect the forests. At the field level, Police inspector and the forest range officers together should shoulder the responsibilities to protect the forests. He said the existing Forest Act of Telangana needs to be thoroughly reviewed and re-looked and also to bring new Act if necessary, to protect the forests and to punish the forest encroachers and smugglers.
The Chief Minister held a high-level review meeting on Saturday at Pragathi Bhavan with senior police and forest officials on forest protection and afforestation. Chief advisor to the government Rajiv Sharma, Chief Secretary SK. Joshi, DGP Mahender Reddy, PCCF PK Jah, Additional DG Jitender, IGs Naveen Chand, Stephen Ravindra, Nagi Reddy, CCF Raghuveer, CMO Officers Bhoopal Reddy, Priyanka Varghese, MLAs Vemula Prashanth Reddy, Balka Suman, MLCs Karne Prabhakar, Shambhipoor Raju, Corporation Chairmen Sheri Subash Reddy, Gyadari Balamallu, Mareddy Srinivas Reddy and others participated in the review meeting. (NSS)
