ROURKELA: Several hundreds of trees have been reportedly felled illegally in revenue forest land near Ratansara village under Gopalpur range of Sundargarh forest division.
The incident came to light after local forest and revenue authorities on Saturday conducted a preliminary inquiry on the demand of Ratansara villagers.
Jogendra Meher, Khambeswar Majhi and other villagers alleged that more than five acre of revenue forest land has been turned bald over the past one month. Claiming that more than 1,000 trees have been felled, they demanded firm preventive action.
The illegal action of felling trees is being attributed to the unholy nexus of forest and revenue authorities with local coal and timber mafia.
BJD’s Sundargarh MLA Jogesh Singh alleged that the BJP government is hand in gloves with coal and timber mafia. Due to pressure from top government officials, the local forest and revenue officials are deliberately keeping mum and taking their cuts.
The revenue forest land where the trees were felled is less than 10 km from Chhattisgarh border. Through the connected forest routes, the timber mafia are shifting the felled trees to the neighbouring state with impunity, he claimed.
The MLA further pointed out that in April, massive illegal coal mining had come to light from inside Telendihi, Ratansara and Bhograkachhar forests under Gopalpur range. There is every likelihood that the latest tree felling incident near Ratansara was done to pave way for illegal coal mining at a fresh location, he claimed.
“The ongoing Crime Branch inquiry into illegal coal mining in Hemgir block seems to be going nowhere. There is an urgent need to fix responsibility on forest and revenue authorities to minimise the adverse impact,” Singh added.
Divisional forest officer (DFO) of Sundargarh Khushwant Singh said an inquiry has been ordered and the exact number of felled trees would be known after enumeration.
Gopalpur forest range officer Harihar Patra claimed around 300 trees have been felled. He also came up with the theory that a sexagenarian, Lochan Singh, was involved in felling of the trees to prepare the land for agriculture. Asked how an elderly man could cut so many trees, Patra said he took help of others, adding further investigation is underway.
In May this year, over 100 full grown tress and several thousands of small ones were found illegally felled on over 10 acre of land in Kastuna revenue forest near Tileimal under Bargaon range within Sundargarh forest division limits.