Incentive Amount to Villagers for Extinguishing Forest Fires in Uttarakhand | 13 Dec 2022

Why In News?

• On December 12, 2022, Uttarakhand Forest Fire and Disaster Management Chief Conservator of Forests Nishant Verma said that forest management committees are being formed in the state with the aim of promoting public participation to control forest fires. For this, it has been decided to give them incentives.

Key Points

• Nishant Verma said that in the first phase of giving incentives to the villagers to extinguish the forest fire, pine-dominated forest divisions are being taken into the scheme. This will also include the area of forest panchayats. Forest management committees are being formed for this.
• On an average, 2,000 to 2,200 forest fire incidents occur every year in the forests of the state. More than three thousand hectares of forest are burnt every year. So far in the year 2022, 2,186 incidents of forest fire have been reported. Of these, 3,425.05 hectares of forest area was damaged, compared to 2,780 forest fire incidents in 2021.
• He said that in the past years, there have been incidents of forest fire even during the winter season. To overcome this problem, forest management committees are being formed at the gram panchayat level for the first time. So far, 48 forest management committees have been formed in three forest divisions Almora, Tehri and Gopeshwar. Along with the villagers, sarpanches of village panchayats, forest panchayats and forest personnel are being included in the committee.
• It is known that there are a total of 11,300 forest panchayats in the state. They will be temporarily given the responsibility of protecting the surrounding forests from forest fire.
• Nishant Verma said that if these committees show readiness and extinguish the forest fire, then they will be given incentives. How much this amount will be, it is still being considered. Around Rs 15 crore is spent every year to control forest fires in the state.