WSO opposes contract recruitment of forest guards in Orissa

Bhubaneswar, Nov 4 (UNI) The Wildlife Society of Orissa (WSO) has opposed contractual appointments of forest guard and foresters.

WSO Secretary Biswajit Mohanty said to fill up the vacant posts of foresters and forest guards throughout the state, the state government had embarked on an ''ill advised'' strategy to recruit 1451 contractors as forest guards Mr Mohanty said when the invaluable forest wealth of the state is threatened by timber mafias, the state government's decision to appoint forest guards on contract basis would only weaken the protection system.

The state government instead of acting in the public interest is dancing to the tunes of the UK Government agency DFID, which favoured the private outsourcing of enforcement and prosecution as part of reforms, the WSO Secretary alleged.

He said both foresters and forest guards posts were recognised by the Orissa Forest Act, 1972 and its rules and were empowered to open fire as per the last amendment carried out in 2003.

However, the contractual forest guards would not dare to fire at timber smugglers as they were not regular government employees and did not enjoy the protection conferred by the state government, Mr Mohanty said.

This would lead to a situation where the prosecution of forest offenders would suffer as the cases booked by them would not stand up in the court for trial, he added.

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