Come up with package for farmers who cut down their popular trees: Er Rashid

5 Dariya News (Rouf Pampori)

Srinagar 06-Jul-2015

MLA Langate Er Rasheed has asked the government to come up with a comprehensive package for those farmers who are forced to cut down their popular trees to implement directions of honourable high court.In a statement to KNS Rasheed said while decision of the high court was taken in the larger public interest but the government should have looked into other side of the story and taken care of those thousands of farmers who have no option but to sell their property worth corers at very meager rates.“In absence of timber sawing machines which have been banned due to forest terrorism in the areas adjacent to the jungles, there is no proper mechanism or way out to ensure proper usage of this huge quantity of popular timber. It is irony that poor farmers are being forced to sell the timber @ Rs 40/ CFT which normally used to be more than Rs 250/CFT. The govt. should either purchase the whole timber from the farmers and store it for proper utilisation as per requirement or must pay some sort of package to every farmer as forcing them to remove popular trees against their will and at a shorter notice violates their fundamental rights. The poor farmers suffer huge monetary losses as not only the govt. machinery threatens them to remove the trees at an earliest but the timber dealers purchase them against very meagre rates due to huge abundance of popular timber available due to the operation,” he said.Rasheed appealed high court to intervene and direct the govt. to come up with some concrete package for the farmers so that fundamental principles of justice are up hold.