COIMBATORE: Personnel of the Tamil Nadu forest department, who were hoping for minister K Ponmudi to address their long-pending demands during the discussion on demand for grants in the legislative assembly last week, are disappointed as the minister did not make any announcement.
One of the major demands of the staff, right from watchers to range officers, is equal treatment on a par with other uniformed services personnel. For example, the state government gives Rs 30L solatium to the family of police personnel who die while on duty. For a forest department personnel, it is Rs 10 lakh.
Another prolonged demand is hike in uniform allowance from Rs 2, 800 to Rs 9,000, including stitching charge, and risk allowance from Rs 800 to Rs 6,000 on a par with police personnel and Special Task Force (STF). The government has not addressed these demands so far.
“It will not be a huge financial burden on the government to implement our demands as the strength of the entire forest department working across the state is around 5,000 whereas the police force employs 1.15 lakh personnel,” S Karthikeyan, president of Forest Staff Association told TNIE
He said the additional chief secretary of climate change and forests Supriya Sahu, and head of the forest force and chief wildlife warden Srinivas R Reddy, are aware of the issues, and had given an assurance that the demands would be addressed.
“Last month, we met both of them and submitted a petition regarding these issues. They assured us to implement them at the earliest. However, no announcement has been made related to these proposals for our welfare, which is demotivating us.
However, we welcome all the initiatives taken up for the welfare of animals and birds, including the Hornbill Conservation initiative by the forest minister at the assembly last week,” said Arul Jothi, state organiser of the association.