Spare fruit trees on encroached land: Forest Employees Union

Shimla, Sep 16 (UNI) The Himachal Pradesh State Forest Corporation (HPSFC) employees union today urged the state government to spare fruit trees on the encroached forest land for maintaining ecology and to prevent felling of trees in the state.

Instead of clearing the encroached forest land of fruit trees, it would be better to hand them over to the Corporation for better management and generating additional revenue to the government, union president Jagdish Badhan and general secretary Kamlesh Shandil said in their letter to the Chief Minister and Forest Minister, copies of which were also released to the press here.

They said besides generating an additional revenue for the state government and maintaining ecology of the state, the government would continue to have ownership of the forest land where the trees were growing.

The state government should carry out a fresh demarcation of orchids on ''as is where is basis'' and depute surplus staff with the corporation to look after the fruit crops, which could later be sold in the open market to earn revenue for the state, they said.

The union leaders said this would also solve the problem of surplus staff with the HPSFC, besides increasing the revenue of the state.

Observing that even the Centre's policy on forest land was clear, which provided it could not be diverted for any other purpose, except when concerning public interest, they said the sparing of fruit trees serve the purpose of preservation of the forest for maintaining ecology.

Mr Badhan and Mr Shandil also lauded the Chief Minister for his relentless struggle for clearing the forest land of encroachments in the state.

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