Lal Chand Kataruchak, Cabinet Minister, Department of Forest and Wildlife Protection hold a meeting with the senior officers of Forest Department at Forest Complex, Mohali and reviewed the functioning of the department.Addressing a press conference after the meeting, the Forest Minister said that the target was to increase the area under forests and trees in the state of Punjab to 7.5% of the total area of the state by the year 2030. To achieve this goal and to make Punjab a greener state, about 1.15 crore saplings would be planted by the Forest Department during the year 2022-23. Out of which about 60 lakh saplings will be planted on forest land as per requirement and about 55 lakh saplings will be planted by farmers and people. Apart from this the Panchayat lands of the aspiring Panchayats would be procured through the Forest Development Corporation and plans have also been made to get the Khair trees planted in the Panchayat area through the Forest Corporation. Likewise a new project related to wood seasoning would be set up to enhance the quality of wood.
Earlier in a meeting with the officials of the department, the Forest Minister directed all the officers to pay personal attention to the problems of the common man. Field officers spend as much time in the field as possible devoting their time to people's work and giving them time on a priority basis. He said that the departmet has also launched a Toll Free Helpdesk No. 1800 180 2323 for the convenience of the people and an online portal to facilitate transparency in the process of issuing permits to the owners of Kandi area. In addition, a procedure will be formulated to remove illegal occupants from forest lands in the state so that illegal encroachments from forest lands can be removed. The Forest Minister directed to take initiative to start a timber market in the state to respond to the agro-forestry and to give a fair price to the farmers for the trees planted by them.
Mrs. Seema Jain, Additional Chief Secretary (Forests) informed that the work of digitization of forest boundaries of the Forest Department would be started on a war footing so that the incidents of illegal encroachments and mining etc. in the forests could be stopped. She assured that the department would give special priority to the protection of forests. On the occasion, the Minister of Forests also launched Surveillance Drones and directed to use drones and modern techniques to curb forest crimes like deforestation, illegal mining etc. He issued strict instructions to ensure that the field staff should wear uniforms while on duty, as the forest department is a uniform department up to the level of range officer and this would enable the protection of forests more effectively. While reviewing the problems of the department, the work of filling up large vacancies of Forest Guards and Forest Range Officers in the department by the Forest Minister said that the government would take a call on this issue soon and besides this the case of the case of regularisation of service of approximately 1800-2000 day laborers working in the department for more than 10 years will also be considered in the Cabinet soon.