While red sanders trees continue to be felled despite strict vigil, the police department is bracing to protect the ‘core area’ of Seshachalam hills, where harvestable trees are present.
Thanks to porous borders, smugglers continue to gain access to the heart of Seshachalam forest through a number of entry points. The seizure of felled logs is of little use in protecting the biodiversity of the forest, and hence, the government is keen on stepping up heat on smugglers and building a formidable wall around the core area, where fully-grown trees are present in large numbers.
While the forest in peripheral areas has already been denuded, the core area, which is spread across 15 to 20 pockets, falls under the police districts of Chittoor, Kadapa and Tirupati Urban. There are a whopping 59 entry/exit points to get into the core area, and 28 of them are in Tirupati Urban district alone. The department is contemplating setting up as many as 10 base camps across the three police districts near the entry points. At a recent meeting chaired by Additional Director-General of Police R.P. Thakur, the department found that the information about the entry of smugglers had failed to yield results on many occasions owing to distance and logistical factors. “After we get a tip-off, we form combat teams, devise strategies/route plans and drop our men at the entry point, which takes half a day. Our men undertake an arduous trek for five to six hours to reach the spot, only to find the trees already felled and the logs ready to be transported. We want to cut down on this time lag,” SP (Tirupati Urban District) Gopinath Jatti said. “A concept paper is being readied for the installation of vehicle scanners at check posts,” he added. The integration of number-plate recognition software into the system will help identify camouflaged vehicles and track down culprits.
Police moot base camps, integrated check posts on highways
