Stung, forest department wants whistleblower repatriated

HYDERABAD: Stung by a forest range officer’s investigation, which exposed the encroachment of compensatory forest land, the forest department has written to the vigilance and enforcement department — where the officer is on a deputation — asking for his repatriation stating that the officer’s deputation period has ended.
FRO, SK Baba Khader Vali, in-charge of Hyderabad and Karimnagar divisions, has been investigating the irregularities found in compensatory afforestation lands.He found several loopholes related to the land in Sircilla, Nirmal, Adilabad, Mancherial and Asifabad.
The united AP government before 2014 and the current Telangana government have diverted forest lands for non-forestry purposes like excavation of coal and minerals, laying drinking water pipelines, roads and electricity lines.
Vali, in his investigation, found that in 2016, forest land in Sircilla was diverted for Kaleswaram Project in 2016, for which compensatory afforestation (CA) land was given from a reserve forest, instead of in a non-forest area.
His probe found that in Bonala, blocks numbering two to four, CA lands were located adjacent to Venkatapurm reserve forest in an area of 200 hectares.
In Nirmal, 170 hectares forest land was diverted in 1990s. In Adilabad, in the diversion pertaining to 2001-02, the agency failed to hand over the land.
Similar violations were observed in Mancherial and Asifabad and were mentioned in the report prepared by the vigilance and enforcement FRO. The FRO had recommended disciplinary action against several forest officials. Angered by this, on March 27, the forest department wrote to the vigilance department asking them to repatriate Vali, stating that his deputation period had ended. The vigilance department wrote back stating that unless it gets a substitute, the officer can’t be repatriated. The deputation period of the officer ends in May.
Principal chief conservator of forests, PK Jha told TOI, “The officer is still with vigilance. We are on track as per compensatory afforestation is concerned. Before 2014, some 24,000 hectares of forest land was diverted, which was brought down to 8,000 hectares.
R Sobha, additional PCCF, told TOI, “Compensatory afforestation is going on well. Issues like encroachment pertain to older diversions. There are no issues for recent projects and we have taken up plantation drives too. In Mancherial, 40 hectares encroached land was found and we are taking steps to rectify it.”