In a bid to streamline unattended salvage tree management from the forest land and prevent revenue losses due to timber corrosion and thievery, the State Government has introduced Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) focusing on expediting the entire process to ensure accountability among forest department officers and strict adherence to fixed timelines. “It has been observed that due to delay in the disposal of salvage trees, the State has to suffer huge financial loss.
With new SOPs in place, the availability of timber at local level, reduction in transportation cost, boost in revenue, conversion in raw forms and enhanced efficiency of field staff will be ensured,” said Chief Minister Thakur Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu. The rollout of these SOPs will be carried out in phases. Initially, the procedures will be enforced in seven Forest Ranges across five divisions within four circles, including Hamirpur, Dharamshala, Solan and Shimla, on a pilot basis starting from 1st September, 2023.
In the subsequent phase, these SOPs will extend to 70 forest ranges within six circles across the State, with full implementation scheduled from 1st July, 2024. Under the new SOPs, the disposal of less than 25 salvage trees will follow a structured schedule, which will have timeline spans from the initial marking to the final disposal within 30 days. The forest guards and Forest Corporation staff will collaborate on the details during the first seven days of the month.
Over the subsequent three days, Deputy Rangers will mark the trees, with a list of designated lots submitted to Range Officers in the following three days. The Range Officer, within seven days, will handle all necessary formalities for felling, conversion and transportation of the produce to specified depots. This will be done at predetermined rates, with communication to the concerned Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) and completion of work within the stipulated timeframe.
For effective disposal, the Range Officer will intimate the DFO and the Forest Corporation counterpart about the same, along with extraction costs and transportation expenses, between the 22nd and 23rd days of the month. Subsequently, the DFO will generate a bill based on extraction, transportation costs and royalty, which will be forwarded to the Divisional Manager of the Forest Corporation. Harvested materials can then be transferred to the Corporation upon payment of the bill, within the period of the 24th to the 26th day of the month.
If the Corporation declines to take the lot, the Range Officer will conduct a departmental auction between the 27th and 28th days of the month, adhering to the reserve price provided by the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department’s management wing. To enhance the process, a dedicated web portal will be developed for data input regarding marking, extraction, and disposal. The portal will enable the uploading of geo-tagged images of salvage trees, as well as stacked timber on a lot-by-lot basis at range depots or roadside depots. This IT support will also facilitate the assessment of cost-benefit factors associated with salvage operations.
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