J&K goes full throttle to geotag forests

SRINAGAR: The J&K administration is actively geo-tagging the forest land across the UT and has so far erected thousands of geo-tagged boundary pillars across 20 districts.

As per the official figures J&K has around 21,122 sq km of forest area which is around 48% of the total geographical area. Of these forests, 4,203 sq km area has been categorised as ‘very dense’, while 8,969 sq km and 21,122 sq km fall under ‘moderate dense’ and ‘open’ forests, respectively.

So far, only 31.99% forest area has been demarcated by fixing or establishing precast or in-situ pillars. Around 91,175 boundary pillars have been fixed in the 2,168 forests that have been surveyed or records for which are available with the forest department. “Geo-tagging of forests helps in boundary consolidation, encroachment eviction and improved forest management. The process helps in accurate assessment of boundaries which helps in resolution of land disputes. It also prevents encroachment attempts on forest land,” said conservator of forest s (north circle) Irfan Rasool in whose jurisdiction many forest areas has already been geo-tagged in the past few years.

Officials said that earlier, the forest department used to erect simple metal or cement poles to demarcate the forest land.

“However, at many places the poles got damaged that paved way for forest destruction. Though the process of demarcation began in 1920, it picked up pace only after 60s as thousands of precast boundary pillars were fixed for the demarcation in past many decades,” they added. 2010 onwards, all the pillars have been geotagged.

As per the official figures of last many decades, 2,85,000 boundary pillars were fixed in the forests for protection of the land. “After introduction of geotagging, 34,077 in-situ pillars have been established in various forests in the J&K which is more than 32% of total boundary pillars. Besides, the department has also fixed 57,098 precast pillars in forests that too were geo-tagged,” officials said.