Counselling to improve efficiency of Forest staff

 The Forest department will conduct counselling sessions for range forest officers, watchers, guards and all lower-rung staff, who form the backbone of the department, to understand their problems and improve their work efficiency.

Also, many officials working in territorial divisions will be brought back to the wildlife division, so that the staff strength in the forest areas is enhanced.

Forest, Ecology and Environment Minister Ramanath Rai has given his nod for the proposal, which was pending before him for the last couple of months. The proposal has gained momentum after the tiger census report was released by the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the National Tiger Conservation Authority on January 20.

As per the report, India houses 2,226 tigers of which Karnataka has the largest population of 406, making it the number one among all the 19 tiger states.

“To ensure better protection of staff, forests and wildlife, some plans have been chalked out, including counselling for ground forest staff. Counselling for all RFOs and those below is important and will start soon.

Marked improvement will be noticed within six months in the department. To further strengthen ground staff, around 2,500 forest guards will be recruited. We are also working towards making contract labourers permanent and bringing back many officials from the territorial division to the wildlife division,” Rai told Deccan Herald.

Forest department officials said counselling was important because many officials wished to leave wildlife posts citing work pressure, having to stay away from family, patrolling by foot for long distances without protection and weapons, covering over 50 sq km a day, dealing with poachers and facing life-threatening situations.

They also face the wrath of farmers during man-animal conflict. Many times, they face the fury of villagers when there is a casualty because of animal attack. Thus, many a time, the ground staff quit their job or seek transfer to social forestry or territorial divisions, which are safer spots.

Though the MoEF has made it mandatory that freshers should serve in forests for at least five years, many do not. They use political influence and get transferred.

In Karnataka, forests are spread across 40 lakh hectares, of which 40 per cent is tiger habitat and protected forest. The sanctioned strength for the number of guards is 3,994, but the actual strength is 3,081.

There are 1,865 deputy range forest officers (DRFOs) against the sanctioned strength of 2,295. There are 672 RFOs against the sanctioned strength of 765. Of these, 165 are newly recruited. There are 261 assistant conservators of forests against the sanctioned strength of 249.

Thirty of them are newly recruited. There are 112 deputy conservators of forests (DCFs) against the sanctioned strength of 72. A total of 40 of the DCFs are on deputation.