MFS officials fume over no role in forest dept vision document

Nagpur: The two-day meet of Indian forest officers (IFS) officers who congregated in the city to prepare future vision document for the forest department has left Maharashtra Forest Service (MFS) officials fuming. This is for the first time such a meet is being held in the state.
“After working in the field for so many years, don’t we have a role to play in the vision document. This discrimination needs to stop,” said top MFS officials affiliated to Maharashtra State Gazetted Forest Officers Association (MSGFOA).

MSGFOA has already drawn attention of the minister towards the bias against them. The association members said most of the field work is being done by DFOs, ACFs and RFOs. “Our work list is much bigger. The agenda being discussed in the IFS conference is applicable to MFS also,” they told TOI.

“The worst part is that even IFS probationers were told to attend the meet, but those MFS officials holding charge of office of IFS officers were also not invited. MFS officials have been performing even better than IFS probationers. If not all, some senior MFS officers could have been certainly worth inviting,” they said.

The state IFS officers conference called by head of forest force UK Agrawal kicked off on Tuesday in the city in which 125 officers from the state were present. After deliberations on a host of issues, a vision document would be prepared for future growth of the department.

Agrawal said, “These IFS officers are future managers of forest and the idea is to groom them. This is an unending debate. We can’t please everyone.”

The first day deliberated on implementation of working plans, disposal of timber and firewood, and bamboo, preparation of budget proposals, need for financial discipline, updation of land records and boundary demarcation, encroachments on forest land after claims have been rejected under FRA and host of other issues.

On Wednesday, the officials will visit Gorewada and command and control room at Van Bhavan and deliberate on the role of information technology in real-time monitoring. The meet will discuss development of new software to ease process to submit proposals under Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980.