Jammu Tawi, February 08:
A total 1957 applicants have applied to the Revenue and Forest Authorities in 53 notified villages seeking permission to axe the protected Khair Trees in their land out of which 106 applications received back from Revenue authorities with their reports of revenue records of each applicant, the information was shared by the forest department officials in a meeting called by the Divisional Commissioner, Jammu Raghav Langar.
Reviewing the cases of permissions for felling Khair trees, the Div Com took strong note of the pending permission applications in the districts and directed the Deputy Commissioners to facilitate permissions and expedite the title verification process and other revenue exercises within one week; so that the cases are sent to Chief Conservator of Forest.
Pertinently, various delegations of PRIs approached the Divisional Commissioner office with the demand to get title verifications done expeditiously by the revenue officers.
Khair grows in subtropical areas of Jammu region of UT is an important cash crop for the farmers, especially in Kandi zones. It comes profusely in non-irrigated lands and thus plays an important role in compensating the farmers for their less productive land. Khair exists in the nine territorial divisions viz; Reasi, Mahore, Udhampur, Ramnagar, Rajouri, Nowshera, Jammu, Kathua and Billawar these divisions spread over six districts viz Reasi, Rajouri, Jammu, Samba, Kathua and Udhampur.
The Div Com said that the roaster is defined in SRO 111 of 2016 for grant of approvals to the permissions of felling of Khair Trees. As per SRO no Khair tree shall be felled or converted for any purpose without permission granted under the said rules. As per SRO no Khair tree/wood shall be used for any purpose except in accordance with the provisions made under SRO, he added. It was informed that several applications are pending with the DFOs and Tehsildar concerned for grant of approval.
The Revenue heads of Districts were instructed to expedite the title verification process and other revenue recommendations and send all the cases to the Chief Conservator of Forest for grant of final approvals.
The Div Com also asked the DCs to reject cases where state land is involved.
The meeting was attended in person by Chief Conservator of Forest, B M Sharma; Additional Commissioner Jammu, Pawan Sharma; DFO Jammu, Anoop Soni; ACR Jammu, Vijay Sharma.
The Deputy Commissioners of Kathua, Samba, Reasi and Udhampur, Rajouri along with DFOs and Assistant Commissioner Revenue participated through video conferencing.
