Separate cadre for wildlife under consideration: CM

Shimla, May 24: State Government is working on a proposal to create a separate cadre for wildlife under Forest Department.

This was revealed by Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh while addressing a public meeting at Pujarali No-4 in Rohru Sub-Division in the district after dedicating 22 KV electricity Control Station constructed at a cost of Rs 65 lakh and Kisan Sewa Kendra of HIMFED and Forest Rest House constructed at a cost of Rs 12 lakh to the people of the area yesterday.

The chief minister said that the government would create separate cadre for wildlife, which would be responsible for protection of flora and fauna in the state and Forest staff from the rank of Forest guard to Ranger would be provided different uniform.

He said that with a view to strengthen the forest department, 555 posts of Forest guards would be filled up soon.

He urged the people to voluntarily surrender the encroached forest land to the state government to save themselves of the action as per the law of the land.

Mr Singh said the state government was making concerted efforts to encourage farmers to cultivate cash crop by diversifying their traditional crop pattern. He said the state has varied climate for cultivation of all types of fruits, cash crop of off-season vegetables, floriculture and herbiculture which could be helpful in providing people more value for their agro-produce.
The Chief Minister said the global agriculture market is growing at a faster pace and there is big requirement of value added agro-products which could be instrumental in strengthening the agro-economy of the State. He said that farmers of the State needed to cultivate quality products which could fetch them remunerative prices in the global market.

He said private players are coming forward in endeavour of the state government to create Agriculture Economic Zone where marketing for all agro-produce would be made convenient.

He said agriculture and horticulture are the two major sectors which have potential of vast self-employment avenues and are in great demand for solving un-employment problem amongst the educated youth. Chief Minister said 11,000 new Anganwari Kendras would be opened in the State to provide employment to 22,000 rural women and would be in addition to 7,000 Kendras already functioning.

He said that it would also help in providing rural women employment avenues nearer to their homes.

Mr Singh said Rs 80 crore horticulture technology mission was under implementation in the state to boost horticulture activities by creating adequate infrastructure and to meet the demand of the horticulturists.

He said HIMFED Depot opened in villages would provide local farmers necessary inputs in the shape of quality seeds, pesticides, fungicides, agriculture, horticulture implements.

UNI