Chief Secretary reviews progress of afforestation carried under different campaigns

SRINAGAR: Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo, on Thursday chaired a meeting of the Forest Department to assess the efforts made in treating the degraded areas through plantation or other conservation measures.

The meeting was attended by Additional Chief Secretary (ACS), Forests; Pr Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF); Addl PCCFs; Director Social Forestry; Director Remote Sensing and other concerned officers of the Department.

During this meeting, the Chief Secretary stressed on closing the gap between the degraded forests found in the UT and year-wise area denominated for treatment in the respective working plans.

He urged them to take the proactive measures to protect the forests by completing the installation of Boundary Pillars (BPs) in all the vulnerable areas besides carrying out their geo-tagging as well.

He took this occasion to enquire about the stock position of planting material in the nurseries of the Department. He emphasised on making available the requisite stock for all the afforestation campaigns especially the ‘J&K Green Drive’, ‘Ek Ped Shahidon Ke Naam’ and ‘Ek Ped Maa ke Naam’ in the length and breadth of the UT.

The ACS Forests, Dheeraj Gupta, while speaking in this meeting threw light on different steps taken by the Department to make these campaigns successful. He apprised the meeting about the plan of the Department to install BPs around the forests to demarcate them.

He also gave out that against the given target of 672 events and 40,786 saplings under ‘Ek Ped Shahidon Ke Naam’, the Department carried out this campaign quite exhaustively in all the areas to surpass targets and planted 67,840 saplings in more than 1800 events organised across the districts of the UT.

In his presentation the PCCF (HoFF), BK Singh informed the meeting that the Department has set an aspirational target of planting 150 lakhs of sapling sunder Ek Ped Maa ke Naam and Ek Ped Shahidon Ke Naam collectively. It has also a target of planting 100 lakhs more saplings under other afforestation campaigns including Capex and CAMPA.

The meeting was further apprised that till date the Department has achieved the plantation target of about 38 lakhs under ‘Ek Ped Maake Naam’ campaign and around 28 lakh plantations under other schemes like CAMPA and Capex here.

Regarding the plantation stock in nurseries, it was added that in 290 nurseries maintained by the Department, there is a planting stock of 290.19 lakh saplings out of which 114.98 lakh are ready for plantation.

Moreover it was revealed that an area of 2150 sq km of degraged forests has been prioritized for treatment using remote sensing out of which an area of 552sq km has been treated during the last 5 years.

About the survey and demarcation works the meeting was informed that in 2135 forests, 2,99,020 BPs had been installed out of which 2,18,744 had been re-surveyed and 1,12,218 had been renovated as well.

About the quality of works it was added that third party evaluation of works is done by the Department. It was revealed that CAMPA works of FY 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22 evaluated by AFC India and reports received. Field evaluation on 851 plantation sites and 89 infrastructure works done by this organisation.

Overall survival is 62.70% (65.40% for Kashmir region and 60.0% for Jammu region). Details including Coordinates/polygons of works on e-green watch portal and website of the Forest Department are in the public domain for evaluation and awareness of general public.