Forest wing staff to ride on 'tigers'

Hundreds of roaring ‘Motorbike tigers’ are entering into the forests to chase the wood smugglers away from the forests.

The state government is giving 1,993 motor bikes with tiger symbol on its front to the field level staff that is Deputy FRO, FSO and Beat officers to keep the vigil on the illegal felling of trees and to control wood smuggling in the state. Telangana government is taking steps to strengthen the forest department.   

The motor bikes also have forest department emblem which reads ‘Telangana State Forest’ and ‘Save Forests and Save Nation’ on the engine side.

Scorpio and Innova to the DFOs and Mahindra Thar vehicles to FRO in the forest department will be provided too. Women staffer will be provided with Scootys.

However, no thought has been given by the government on supplying weapons to the forest staff in view of the increased Maoists movements in north Telangana.      

Efforts are being made, however, to extend all possible help to the families of forest staff attacked and killed by the wood smugglers and cases have been registered under PD Act against the wood smugglers.    

Minister for forest and environment Jogu Ramanna said that state government has sanctioned Rs 30 crore to purchase bikes, vehicles. He added that the state government will pay Rs 1,500 towards maintenance of each bike.

He said the move at improving vigilance in the forest areas and national highways and state roads to thwart wood smuggling and illegal felling of trees.

He elaborated that the state government has adopted a adopted multi- pronged strategy including mass plantation of saplings under Haritha Haram and steps to protect the existing forest by controlling the wood smuggling to enhance the forest area in the state.

To bolster confidence and efficiency of forest officials and field level staff involved in controlling wood smuggling, the state is equipping then with vehicles and advanced communication gadgets.

After police department, state government is now taking steps to strengthen the forest department by providing the vehicles to staff of all cadres and advance communication gadgets to control the wood smuggling and indiscriminate felling of trees in order to improve the forest cover.

The move was initiated after finding difficulty faced by field level staff and officials from the wood smugglers.    

Strike 'exposes' Swachh Bharat

Neither political leaders nor district officials were seen removing the piled up garbage on the streets and government offices in Adilabad, Mancherial, Nirmal, Kagaznagar, Bellampalli and other municipalities in the district.

The garbage remained there till some sanitary workers who called off their strike started removing it.

It is surprising to note that politicians and babus were active with the brooms during the Swacha Bahrath programme.  

The strike exposed their commitment to the Swach Bhrarath porgramme. But some individuals and groups who were conscious about the sanitation made efforts to remove the garbage in their localities especially in cities like Hyderabad. But there was no such effort from anybody in small towns.

No politician or officials came forward to remove the garbage in government offices and in the colonies when the sanitary went on strike.

The piled up garbage started getting cleared from the colonies only a section of the sanitary workers swung into action.

Everybody was waiting for the strike to be called off as the residents of the colonies could no longer bear the foul smell emerging from the piled up garbage. Even today, a large number of people think that sanitation related work is menial.

Resident of Vidyanagar in Adilabad observed that the ruling party Ministers and MLAs convinced a section of sanitary municipal workers affiliated to their party (Telangana Rashtra Samiti) to call off their strike promising to fulfill their demands but the latter could not motivate the officials and public to clear the garbage.