The Hindu : `Irregularities' in teak felling

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 02, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala

`Irregularities' in teak felling

By G. Prabhakaran

PALAKKAD MAY 1. A high-level inquiry team headed by the Chief Conservator of Forest (Vigilance), J.K. Tiwari, has found a number of irregularities and smuggling of valuable timber in the final thinning operations in the 1,000-acre UTT teak plantation at Karimkayam in the Mangalam dam area.

The team is learnt to have found irregular marking, felling, transporting, conversion and disposal of valuable teak trees numbering 6,200 in Block II of Bit 3 of the plantation, violating all norms and procedures stipulated in the Kerala Forest Code.

The Government had on April 7 ordered an inquiry into the irregularities and smuggling of valuable timber during the final thinning operations of the 35-year-old Government teak plantation. This preliminary inquiry conducted by the Assistant Conservator of Forest (Vigilance), Thiruvananthapuram, Ravindranath, found the allegations true and subsequently the Government ordered a higher level inquiry. The inquiry team headed by the CCF (Vigilance) conducted inspection of the plantation on April 24.

The detection of duplicate numbers, trees without numbers and unauthorised additional marking are testimony to the fact that large quantities of timber were smuggled from the teak plantation, Forest Department sources said.

In a timber operation, the failure to maintain proper records as per the Kerala Forest Code provisions leads to irregularities and smuggling of timber. The team is learnt to have got necessary evidences of non-accounting and loss of timber.

As a general rule and according to the precedence of the department, the officers responsible for such lapses are to be taken to task. Though the irregularities have been established, no action has been taken against the officers concerned. The inspection team, in its report to the Government, is understood to have said that additional marking was done during the thinning of the plantation. These additionally marked trees were felled, converted and removed from the stump without check by any authority. A number of trees felled were converted and dragged from the stump site without registration or recording of conversion details like its girth and length in the marking register or even in the `kutty' books and stock register.

The inspecting team felt that additional marking should not have been resorted to when the felling was in progress as it amounts to violation of rules prescribed in para 17, Appendix VII of the Kerala Forest Code Vol.III. Not only that, the additional marking has not been checked by the higher authorities. This action is highly unwarranted as it gives a lot of scope for smuggling. Conversion and removal of material from the stump site are illegal as it would result in smuggling of timber.

The inspection team found that there was no systematic marking by giving numbers in rows. Marking numbers were given in a haphazard way. This shows that there was no proper marking.

The team detected that super quality teak timber having girth of more than 85 cm were found felled and removed without having any marking number on the stump. This shows that under the cover of thinning, high quality teak trees were felled, the department sources said.

As per the code (Vol. III, para 17), ``once marking is completed and felling has commenced no additional trees shall be marked without sanction from the CCF. The marking officer and the range officer shall be held responsible for such omission.... '' In this case, additional marking was done without taking any permission, the sources said.

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