THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Even as there is growing opposition towards the Kerala Forest Amendment Bill, the state government has not received even a single complaint or amendment to the draft legislation. The government is open to looking into any complaint or discussion with any organisation regarding the legislation, said Forest Minister A K Saseendran.
“The government decided to bring in amendments, as there were lapses in the legislation. Only the draft has been published. It will become legislation, only after a lot of process. The draft has been published so that the public can come up with suggestions, opinions and complaints. Till date, no one has come forward to use the opportunity,” said Saseendran, adding that the department has enemies all around.
Speaking after launching eight e-governance applications under the department here on Wednesday, Saseendran pointed out that there’s substantial decrease in the number of people killed in wild animal attacks in the last three years.
Going by the data from a decade ago, there were about 901 deaths. “This year there were only 37 deaths. Of these, 16 were due to snakebites. In 2023, 25 people were killed in animal attacks while the year before it was 110, and 123 in 2021. It shows that effective intervention by the department has succeeded in bringing down the number of deaths. We are yet to get any appreciation for that. Shouldn’t we then reach out to the people?” he asked.
The minister also had a word of caution for forest officials. Though the forest department was able to make major achievements, the same isn’t effectively conveyed to the people. We need to also market activities of the forest department, he said.
“Unfortunately even now among the masses, the forest department and its activities carry an anti-people tag. To bring in a change, we should provide modern, foolproof and speedy services to the public. Alongside administrative reforms, we should ensure that the benefits of such services reach the farmers who are at the receiving end of wild animal attacks.
Though we have been doing many things, we should keep in mind that there is hardly any support at present for the forest department,” he said.
Head of Forest Force Ganga Singh presided over while US Agency for International Development Team Lead Soumitri Das delivered the keynote adress. Forests Additional chief secretary K R Jyothilal, chief wildlife warden Pramod G Krishnan, PCCF Rajesh Ravindan, APCCFs P Pugazhendi, L Chandrasekar, G Phanindrakumar Rao, J Justin Mohan, Social Forestry CCF Sanjayan Kumar, and DCF Santhosh Kumar also spoke.