Illegal felling is on forest land!
- The DC Jammu must striker on Tehsildar Kharah Balli for faking the report and cheating his high office.
- No one will be spared in the illegal felling case of Forest land Thandi Choi at any cost says B Mohan Dass IFS.
- First revenue officials have blatantly refused about the forest land in Thandi Choi but after some days they accepted that huge chunk of forest land exist in Thandi Choi.
jj correspondent
Jammu, Apr 03: Why the revenue officials tried to mislead to mislead the Conservator of Forest Jammu East Circle B Mohan Dass IFS during his visit to Thandi Choi to take the stock of illegal felling of Khair trees? What was the intention of the revenue officials for hiding the truth from the Conservator of Forest Jammu East Circle? Why the revenue officials tried to produce wrong map before the visiting Conservator of Forest Jammu East Circle? Why the Tehsildar Kharah Balli, SHO PS Khour and Block Forest Officer Khour hurriedly done a joint verification on 04-03-2023, without any order from senior officer? What was the intention of Tehsildar Kharah Balli, SHO PS Khour and Block Forest Officer Khour for producing such unreal report? Why Tehsildar Kharah Balli, SHO PS Khour and Block Forest Officer Khour wanted to mislead the administration and the people over the forest land and illegal cuttings? These are very hard-hitting questions for the forest and revenue department and people want replies to such questions.
The Conservator of Forest Jammu East Circle B Mohan Dass IFS today personally paid a visit to take stock of the situation so that he may know how much loss has been done to Forest on the pretext of permission. First the revenue officials present there tried to misleads the visiting the forest officer on the pretext that there was no Forest land but the keen-witted officer managed to know that there is big chunk of forest land and huge illegal felling of Khair trees had been wreaked by the concerned officers of forest, revenue and police.
It is pertinent to mention that on March 04, 2023 Tehsildar Kharah Balli, SHO Khour and Block Officer Khour had prepared the report claiming that there is no forest land in Thandi Choi. But they could not stand with the lie and within a month’s time revenue has taken U-Turn and openly accepted the forest land exists in Thandi Choi. Today again, during spot verification near house of Goga Ram Revenue officials tried to mislead the Conservator of Forest Jammu East Circle and his team but they could not stand before the honest B Mohan Dass and got deflated. Such action clearly speaks that the revenue department tried to hide its committed blunders in the said area.
Now, the DC Jammu must immediately step-in in the case and take stringent action against the Tehsildar who tried to mislead the revenue department and even her too. She should constitute an independent commission to re-verify all sanctioned 89 files granting permission for Khair Felling as the sitting revenue officials have been proven phoney. Now the Conservator of Forest Jammu East Circle must suspend Forest Block Forest Officer Khour for producing fictitious report.
The role of SSP Jammu is also mandatory to conduct a departmental enquiry to unearth the role of the then SHO PS Khour in preparing the mischievous report, besides SHO Khour and SHO Akhnoor should also be made accountable for the illegal transportation as sources confirm their role in the process.
The Conservator of Forest Jammu east circle has sought several queries from field staff regarding the illegal felling and they utterly failed to answer, consequently he summoned them to his office tomorrow. The personal visit of Conservator of Forest Jammu east Circle remained instrumental for on spot verification and emanated accurate information, whereas the culprits will not be spared from his hands.
Conservator Forest was accompanied by dozens of officials including DFO Jammu and others from different wings of the Department among which the majority were from the Forest Protection Force. The team has collected various photographs along with GPS Coordinates from different locations in Thandi Choi where felling has been done. All these Photographs and their GPS Coordinates will be verified as per their record to verify the scale of the damage.
A top official has confirmed that the Revenue Department has accepted now that Forest exists in Thandi Choi which is contradictory with their earlier submitted joint Report signed by Block Forest Officer Khour and SHO Khour in which they have clearly mentioned that there is no forest in Thandi Choi.
