Tripura govt to bring hectares under afforestation

Agartala, Apr 13: The Tripura Government has decided to afforest 11,000 hectares of land during 2007-08 with the joint efforts of Forest department and Forest Development Agency (FDA).

A project report demanding Rs 20 crore, has been sent to the Union Government and the state goverenment has already received Rs one crore to begin the preliminary work. The remaining fund is expected within the 11th five year plan period.

To make the people self sufficient in forest based cultivation, the FDA was constituted during 2002 to provide financial aid to them. At present there are twelve such FDAs in the state.

To review the funtioning of FDA a high level meeting was held recently. State Chief Secretary Sashi Prakash presided over the meeting.

The meeting stressed importance on the cultivation of medicinal plant, jetropha and fish. An amount of Rs 17 crores has been received from the Centre during the last five years and from that fund 150 water reserviors had been created besides afforestation.

UNI