146 man-made forest fires so far this year, dept names 17 accused

STATE CHIEF SECRETARY ISSUED ORDERS TO TAKE STRICT ACTION AGAINST PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE FOR FOREST FIRES

DEHRADUN: With the state reporting 146 cases of “manmade” forest fire incidents this year, the forest department has intensified its action against people causing forest fires, according to people familiar with the matter.

Nishant Verma, additional principal chief conservator of forests and state nodal officer for forest fires, said, “Till April 25, the forest department registered 146 cases for ‘man-made’ fire incidents. In the 146 cases, 17 people have been named and the rest 129 are unidentified. We have been making efforts to identify those who are still unidentified.”

On Tuesday, Uttarakhand chief secretary Radha Raturi instructed the concerned officials of forest, police and administration to take strict action against people who are igniting fire in forests deliberately.

Verma said: “The incidents of forest fires have started increasing from the second week of this month. Most of the cases are being reported from the Kumaon region,” he said.

According to the official data, Uttarakhand witnessed 113 forest fire incidents from April 23 to April 25, of which 46 incidents were reported on April 23, 13 on April 24 and 54 incidents on April 25. In these incidents, over 139.63 hectares of forest land was damaged.

Over the rising incidents of forest fires, Congress leader and Haldwani MLA Sumit Hridayesh said: “The month of April is yet to end...we could see forest fires across Uttarakhand. It is a horrible situation. We can only expect what would be the situation in May and June... It is destroying our forest wealth, but government is sleeping... It seems the government was only active till the polling day on April 19, now it is in deep slumber.”

BJP state media in charge Manveer Singh Chauhan said, “The CM, and forest minister are regularly monitoring the situation. The Congress has a habit of doing politics on all issues.”