Tackling Forest Fire in Uttarakhand.
Sanjeev Goyal
No. SKG/RS/029 18 Apr 2021
To
The council of State,
Rajya Sabha,
The petition of S K Goyal, D-103 Shivam Apartments, Plot-14, Sector-12, Dwarka, New Delhi-110078.
Sheweth: Brief… Tackling Forest Fire in Uttarakhand.
ISSUE: There is a theory that wildfires are caused by friction happening inside a forest during scorching heat. But in reality, most of these wild-fires happen due to artificial reasons attributable to man. The most prominent reason is burning of dry leaves by villagers settled in & around jungle area. Setting dry leaves to fire is old age practice and Forest Department has also accepted this by calling it ‘routine’. I myself on several occasions while passing thru jungle area have witnessed that such fires happen quite frequently, and forest department does not take any action except to wait for it to extinguish at its own. But when there is wood all around it is extremely difficult to predict or control the direction of fire. In the absence of any strict punitive action in vogue, the heap of dry leaves attracts the attention of passer-by to burn it so that space can be cleared. That is why even in city like Delhi tendency of burning dry leaves could have been seen till a few years back until NGT issued strict prohibitory orders.
Huge environmental losses are suffered by the country every year due to this. The interview of ex-Chief Forest Conservator of Uttrakhand aired on 12/04/2021 at Doordarshan confirmed that most fires are caused deliberately and also by the careless attitude of the local residents. Forests are in several states but the fire in same areas in Uttarakhand jungles is a fact confirming that this is only deliberate.
The kind of losses suffered by the community due to such wildfires is just enormous. On one side we are on the verge of loosing sensitive ecological balance in certain areas of Himalayas and exposing population at large to severe health consequences, and on the other side some handful of anti-social elements are setting forests to fire and putting Government machinery at a great strain. As per estimate this year also around 2600 square hectare areas is gutted by fire.
Unfortunately, Government has not been able to take steps strong enough to protect the forests from the hands of some miscreants. As there is no deceleration in such activities tear after year it is evident that steps taken to curb this practice are grossly just not sufficient.
Now the question arises how to prevent such blaze causing immense destruction by gutting several hundred hectares of green cover every year and posing a serious threat to already melting glaciers. The fact that fine ash particles resulting from fire are blocking holes in the ground evading rain water to seep in has really made the magnitude of problem astronomical. The heap of dry leaves will continue to be formed in fall season every year. The villagers will also continue to set it at fire. We would have to go down to understand the reason why these heaps are set to fire.
(i) Generally, these villages, in and around forest area, don’t have any municipality where daily garbage removal facility is available.
(ii) The heaps cause disturbance by occupying space in & around pathways and become an eye sore,
(iii) There is an easy & traditional way to get rid of this by setting it to fire,
(iv) Since forest department also calls this practice as ‘routine’ the process is accepted by all stake-holders.
And accordingly your petitioner prays that –
There could be a 2 way action plan to address the above problem:
(A) Arrangement to be made for timely disposal of dry leaves and
(B) Strict surveillance mechanism be put in place to catch hold of culprits & subjecting them to exemplary punishment for causing fire,
There could be following further sub-set of actions to achieve the objectives:
The removal of leaves can be ensured by including this as an approved activity in ‘MGNREGA’. If during fall season a few days employment can be generated with the objective of:
(A)(i) Transferring this heap to jungle regularly or other nearby suitable areas so that this doesn’t interfere with the movement of villagers and not provoke them to set it to fire and
(A)(ii) Small hand run crusher can also be made available to these workers so that before or after transferring to jungle these leaves can be crushed for early composting.
This can address a major part of problem. As employment is already guaranteed under NREGA there could be negligible marginal cost
Enforcing a surveillance mechanism in far-flung small villages would have its own practical difficulties with high-cost impact. To address this challenge, it is suggested that:
(B)(i) A good amount of reward may be declared to encourage citizens to come forward report about such incidents where any person provides concrete evidence against another person responsible for forest fire and
(B)(ii) The quantum of punishment for causing forest fire must be increased significantly to act as a real deterrent.
Request that above suggestion be reviewed and be approved so that it can be implemented in fall season in all such effected states.
This being a matter of general public interest a suitable bill may be moved in parliament for amendment, if needed.
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Name of Petitioner |
Address |
Signature |
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S K Goyal, |
D-103 Shivam Apartments, Sector-12/14, Dwarka, New. Delhi-110078. cwa...@gmail.com # 9891 271854. |
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Counter signature of Member presenting
Address: Secretary General, Rajya Sabha, Parliament House, Delhi: 110001. secyg...@nic.in
Note: Signed copy attached.
Sanjeev Goyal
“forest fire management” as a new category of job work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural
Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), 2005, according to a notification issued by the Rural
Development Ministry. It said that “forest fire management” has been added along with “afforestation,
tree plantation and horticulture in common and forest lands, road margins, canal bunds, tank
foreshores and coastal belts, duly providing right to usufruct (persons with the right can use the
property, collect income from it, without ownership) to the households covered. Water conservation,
water harvesting structures, earthen dams, stop dams, check dams, watershed management works
such as contour trenches, terracing, contour bunds, boulder checks, gabion structures and spring
shed development, as well as micro and minor irrigation works, including creation, renovation and
maintenance of canals and drains, renovation of traditional water bodies, including desilting, are
some of the work areas the government has allotted for MNREGA workers.