PMO moots creation of separate All India Service for National Parks

New Delhi, July 7 (UNI) In what has raised the hackles of officials in the Forest Wing of the Environment and Forest Ministry, the Prime Minister's Office(PMO) has mooted creation of a separate National Parks Service separating it from the Indian Forest Service.

The PMO has also asked the Ministry to prepare proposals for bifurcating the Ministry into two departments of Environment and Forest and Wildlife.

The Ministry has been asked to start work on the two plans, highly placed sources told UNI.

The wildlife lobby had been pushing for the creation of a separate service for taking care of national parks and other protected areas and wildlife sanctuaries after the Sariska disaster, they said.

Creation of a separate service for wildlife sancturies has met with great disapproval from the foresters of the Ministry who say it was an unwise move as forest and wildlife were so much interlinked that the two cannot be separated, sources in the Ministry told UNI.

The Ministry which received the directions from the PMO a few days back has already started working on it, sources said.

Though the proposal for a separate national parks service was among the recommendations of the National Forest Commission, there was strong note of dissent by four important members of the panel.

Wildlife experts and activists have for long been advocating separation of forest from the Environment Ministry and also taking wildlife protection from the purview of the Forest Service.

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