The State government’s attitude towards protection of forests is sure to leave conservationists scratching their heads, because the irony is hard to miss. On one hand, the government displays a penchant for plantation, courtesy the massive Telanganaku Haritha Haram programme, but on the other, it supports the idea of felling trees for ‘development’, that too in a supposedly highly protected core area of Kawal Tiger Reserve (KTR).
Several trees have been a casualty of the nearly three-km gravel road being laid between Mamidipalli village in Asifabad Forest Division of Kumram Bheem Asifabad district and Kawal in Jannaram Forest Division of Mancherial district, and another track laid to connect Kalamadugu and Pandavapur, partly in Kadem Forest Range and partly in Indhanpalli Forest Range in Jannaram Division.
The government, however, has turned a blind eye to the illegal felling of trees.
While precious forest till a distance of 2.5 km has been cut in the first case, there is no account of the loss of green cover in the latter.
Indhanpalli Forest Range Officer R. Srinivas Rao has stopped the road works at both sites at the border where his range begins. He, however, is faced with a lot of pressure in the second case where he was even threatened with the prospect of an “immediate transfer”.
Only recently, Mr. Rao, who took charge of Indhanpalli six months ago, had refused to allow cutting of trees when R&B authorities wanted to create a diversion from a new bridge in KTR.
A conservationist, who has been keenly following developments at the tiger reserve for long, says, “There is no coordination between the four Forest Divisions into which KTR has been divided when the districts were reorganised in September-October 2016. The move has resulted in enormous loss to KTR.”
Vigilance DFO, Hyderabad, S. Rajashekhar, who inspected the Mamidipalli-Kawal road site, says, “I visited the place where illegal felling took place and will submit a report to t he government.”
