JOIN USForest dept may introduce counselling for staff transfers
The Forest department has decided to follow in the footsteps of the Education and Health departments, to streamline transfers of officials.
The department may soon introduce an annual counselling system of transfers. Officers from the rank of Assistant Conservator of Forest (ACF) to forest guards are planned to be brought under the new system. Close to 1,500 employees are expected to come under it.
G V Sugur, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, said that the department has prepared a draft note for this purpose and it has been discussed within the department.
“At the government level, the minister has been brought into the loop. We are now awaiting for the government to discuss it in the cabinet and approve the counselling system,” he said.
According to Sugur, the department wants to stop the personnel ‘flouting’ the rules to seek transfers by way of ‘influence’.
“The counselling system will provide proper criteria for transfers and give the personnel the exact picture of vacancies in the department in each district or range,” said Sugur.
The department is likely to keep the personnel for a minimum of three years in a single location, before they become eligible for transfer under the new guidelines. Sources in the government state that Forest Minister Ramanath Rai is quite positive about the transfer counselling and is likely to bring it before the cabinet for approval.
It is said that the department is trying to maximise the reach of its officials by cutting manpower in places which have minimal forest cover and transferring them to locations with heavier forest cover, but facing manpower shortage. For example, the department is likely to bring down the number of ACFs and DCFs in Gulbarga and Bidar and transfer them to the Malnad districts.
“The transfer guidelines have to amended, for which a legislation has to be passed. We are trying to bring the amendments before the legislature as early as the next Belgaum session,” said Sugur.
Dividend to govt
On Thursday, the Karnataka Forest Development Corporation (KFDC) paid Rs 10.93 crore as the government dividend for 2013-14 and arrears from 2007-08.
The cheque was handed over to the forest minister by the Corporation at his office in Vidhana Soudha. The KFDC was established in 1971 to raise commercial forest plantations to meet the raw material requirements for forest-based industries.