Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, July 8: Describing J&K Forest Protection Force (FPF) as a vital tool for protecting the forest wealth in the State, Minister for Forest, Ecology & Environment, Bali Bhagat, today said that the Government will take innovative steps to make the functioning of the organization more affective and result oriented.
While reviewing the functioning of the FPF at a meeting held here, the Minister expressed satisfaction with the achievements of the organization and called upon the officers to adopt a pro-active approach to achieve targets. He said organization has been assigned a sacred task of preserving the State’s major natural resource “Forests”, which is responsible for maintaining the environment and ecology, therefore, all the functionaries have to be more accountable in their profession to achieve the objective.
Calling upon the field functionaries to keep a close vigil on the activities of the timber smugglers and land encroachers, the Minister stressed the need for a well-knit strategy and coordinated approach for better results. He said preserving the State wealth is a collective mandate of all wings of the Forest Department and coordination is must to achieve the tangible results. He appreciated the efforts of the officers for safeguarding the forests at the cost of their comforts and putting their lives at risk some times.
He maintained that the Government will acknowledge the good work of the officers and reward them suitably in future. He also assured to bring more reforms in the organization to safeguard the service interests of all categories of the employees. He directed the Director FPF to come up with the details of pending issues that require attention of the Government so that the same are addressed expeditiously.
Meanwhile, the Minister has ordered constitution of a 5-member panel of forest officers headed by Principal Chief Conservator of Forests to suggest ways and means to rejuvenate the functioning, making optimum use of manpower and addressing allied issues of FPF and IWDP. The Committee shall submit its recommendations to the Government within a period of one month.
All district officers of Kashmir valley were present in the meeting.
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