The contractors are opposing the condition that puts onus of forest fires in their units on the purchaser. "If fire spreads beyond one hectare in a tendu unit that has been sold to the bidder/licensee in any auction, the said auction will be cancelled immediately and no compensation will be paid to the licencee. His earnest money deposit ( EMD) will also be forfeited," said Ramanuj Choudhary, additional principal chief conservator of forests ( APCCF) for NTFP, monitoring and evaluation.
"We are opposed to this condition. The tendu season overlaps with mahua flowers and forest fires are also caused by mahua collectors. We cannot be singled out for fires," said Jayeshkumar Patel, president of Gondia Beedi Leaves Contractors Association, who was leading the contractors at Van Bhavan where the tenders were being accepted on Monday. Tenders will also be accepted on February 6 and 9.
On October 11, 2011, TOI was first to report quoting principal secretary (forests) Praveen Pardeshi that henceforth contractors will face the the music if forests bearing tendu units were set afire. Forest fires are often blamed on tendu collectors who value the tender leaves on new shoots that emerge on trees after a fire.
Sources in government said plans were afoot to allot tendu units to village panchayats if contractors continued their boycott. However, Pardeshi said if a fire occurred in tendu units run by a panchayat, same rules would be applicable. Read the full report here.
Source: Times News Network, Nagpur.
