COIMBATORE: Staff of the Tamil Nadu forest department, from forest guards to forest range officers, who spend hours patrolling the forest to keep the region free from poaching, have been receiving only a meagre amount as monthly risk allowance for the past three decades. Following a series of miniscule hikes over the years, the allowance amount — from Rs 200 currently stands at just Rs 800, staff members said.
Speaking to TNIE, department staff said they frequently risk their lives in their line of work. In July 2022, two Anti-Poaching Watchers were attacked by a sloth bear, resulting in the loss of vision for one of them. Furthermore, a 38-year-old forest guard was killed in a gaur attack at the Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve in July 2023. Such incidents and injuries are plenty and many go unreported, they said.
Staff members stated that they work in far more difficult conditions than Special Task Force (STF) personnel, but the latter receive a far higher risk allowance of Rs 6,000 per month.
A forest guard in Dharmapuri told TNIE, “Since watcher posts have remained vacant for years, we are also forced to cover a larger forest area and end up overworked.”
“We need at least the Rs 6,000 allowance given to the STF, along with the prompt filling of vacancies to ease our work burden,” said another forest guard working in the Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve (STR).
Moreover, the state government is not providing any compensation in case of death while on duty, the staff said.
“The same state government is distributing Rs 10 lakh as compensation to the kin of commoners who are killed in a wild animal attack. Recently, the state handed Rs 50 lakh to the kin of a policeman who died due to a heart attack in Chennai. The government should announce similar compensation amounts for the kin of forest department staff who die in the line of duty,” they demanded.
They further said that they already relayed their demands — of hiking their monthly risk allowance to Rs 6,000 and handing over the uniform allowance of Rs 9,000, including stitching charges, annually — to the previous forest minister M Mathiventhan. We hope the new Forest Minister K Ponmudy will implement them, they said.
Minister Ponmudy and Head of the Forest Force Srinivas R Reddy were unavailable for comments.