The headquarters of the Forest department at Aranya Bhavan may soon have a dedicated cell of the Forest Survey of India on its premises.
Director General of FSI Anoop Singh, during his visit to the department on Saturday, has made a request to the Telangana Forest department to provide space and necessary manpower for the same.
Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Head of Forest Force R. Sobha informed that a letter has already been addressed accepting the proposal, and that a dedicated working group will be created for interaction and discussions on various aspects.
Mr. Anoop Singh appreciated the work of the Telangana Forest Department in the field of Management Information Systems, Geographic Information System, Differential Global Positioning System/ Differential Global Navigation Satellite System and remote sensing.
He wished to involve the department in the development of protocol for digitisation of forest blocks, improvements desired in e-Green Watch portal, forest fire risk zonation, selection of sites for construction of water harvesting structures, plantations and other activities.
Detailed presentations of the activities and modules of GIS and MIS cells were made to apprise the DG of the work done in Telangana State.
Mr. Anoop Kumar said the data from Parivesh portal for curation of forest and wildlife clearances is required to be transferred to the e-Green Watch portal which captures the information on the compensatory afforestation works taken up by the State governments, to avoid redundancy.
A detailed presentation was made on the standard operating procedure for survey and demarcation of forest areas, which has been submitted to the government for approval.
Mr. Anoop Kumar has suggested for involvement of Survey of India apart from Telangana State Remote Sensing Applications Centre, National Remote Sensing Centre and for formation of a working group for monitoring the digitisation of forest boundaries.
All senior forest officials attended the meeting and the presentation.
