M F AHMED
Daltonganj, Nov 3: After more than 3 years a meeting of the Palamu Tiger Conservation Foundation (PTCF) was held in Ranchi on Tuesday, under the chairmanship of state’s Additional Chief Secretary Forest, Environment and Climate Change Department, Lalbiaktluanga Khiangte.
According to the Deputy Director (South division) of Palamu Tiger Reserve (PTR), Mukesh Kumar, the last PTCF meeting was held in February 2018. No meeting was held in 2019. In 2020, Covid-19 pandemic sealed the prospects of any meeting all around.
Mukesh Kumar said that this governing body meeting of the PTCF holds great significance as from now PTR will not have to live on loans from other sources but it will have all legitimacy to draw money from its PTCF in extreme penury condition.
PTCF is like a wild life monetary fund which loans money in distress times to the Palamu tiger reserve and currently it is in great financial distress.
The PTCF until the meeting on Tuesday, had a ‘tradition of loaning money up to the tune of only Rs.10 lakh to the tiger reserve Palamu but it has been now hiked to Rs 1.50 crore.
More than 300 contractual employees working in the reserve have not been paid for over the last ten or eleven months. Their daily wages are above Rs. 300 a day. The annual expenditure on these contractual employees comes to around Rs. 3 crores.
Field Director and Chief Conservator of PTR, Kumar Ashutosh said, “We have Rs. 1.50 crores in the PTCF fund which will be used to pay the unpaid wages of our 300 plus contractual employees.”
He agreed 1.50 crores would not wipe out the entire arrear payment of the contractual employees but at the same time, it will be a big relief in times of fiscal uncertainty.
Kumar Ashutosh said, “PTCF has stood with us this time and our additional chief secretary forest, Mr. Khiangte and Chief Minister and Forest Minister Hemant Soren deserve all credits and appreciations for conducting this meeting,”
According to sources, the PTR gets its funds from two sources. One is the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) Delhi and the other is the state government. The funds coming from NTCA are to be synchronized with the state government in 60:40 ratios.
In another development, the PTCF agreed to have one field biologist, a veterinary doctor and one eco development committee coordinator.
Kumar Ashutosh further informed that more safari cars would be bought in for the PTR. At present, one safari car is in Betla while two are in the South division of the tiger reserve and these safari cars are tourists’ first choice to travel for sightseeing.
Congress MLA of Manika, Ramchander Singh, an important member of the PTCF, said that he raised the issue of roads in the meeting. He said these roads fall in the forest and are held up which is harmful to the overall development of the villages falling across PTR.
He further said that he has asked the forest department to be sensitive and considerate towards the roads between Orsapath – Mahuadanr, Labher Amwatiker, Kutmu Mahuadanr and rural roads in Latehar where forest department has thrown spanners. He also tried to convince the PTCF general body that widening of the 80 kilometer long Kutmu Mahuadanr road is necessary which the forest department has put on the backseat.
Similarly, the 6 km stretch between Orsapath and Mahuadanr is in terrible condition and needs to be strengthened but here again the forest department raises its red flags.
The PTCF meeting had PCCF – HoFf (head of the forest force) P K Verma, PCCF wildlife Rajiv Ranjan, Chief of waste land development board A K Rastogi, Additional PCCF development N K Singh, CCF Ranchi Vishwanath, Congress Manika MLA Ramchander Singh and others.
The PTCF meeting was also attended by two well known personalities having long association with the wild life namely Sangam Lahiri and Satyajit as guests.
