New Delhi: The Supreme Court has called the Uttarakhand chief secretary to be present on May 17, where he is going to state the reason for the state government’s negligence of the wildfires. The policy discouraged the use of forest officials and vehicles for election duties by states.
Besides, the court has asked for a reason for bypassing the central funds that were given for firefighting efforts, where only a small portion of the released money was spent. The chief secretary is in charge of determining the major vacancies in the forest department, the lack of firefighting equipment and the deployment of the forest officials despite the exemption from the Election Commission.
The bench, headed by Justice BR Gavai and comprising Justices SVN Bhatti and Sandeep Mehta, scolded the authorities for not putting the action plans into action, which they made without fail.
The Supreme court has become very strict after the many recent wildfires in Uttarakhand, which caused the loss of lives and the destruction of a large amount of land. Forest department head Dhananjay Mohan has said that five people died, and a lot of the land was destroyed in these Doji bumps.
Due to this, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami launched the Pirul Lao-Paise Pao Mission, which intends to involve the local villagers and youth in forest fire prevention activities. During this campaign, the villagers gather pine tree leaves (Pirul), which are then measured and stored at the collection centres.
Dhami announced how successful the campaign was, and he said that community participation was the cause of the impressive decrease in the number of forest fires. He observed the good effects on the villagers’ living conditions, with the Pirul collection remaining a reliable income source.
Dhami stressed the aspect of the initiative that the forest fires were much less and the economic benefits for the nearby villages. The state has introduced measures to prevent wildfires from spreading, and at the same time, it facilitates the community to contribute to forest conservation.
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