Green drive in Odisha's Jagatsinghpur district wilts for lack of care

JAGATSINGHPUR: Though crores of rupees has been allocated to the Divisional Forest Offices (DFO)s of Cuttack and Rajnanagar under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNRGES) for plantation of trees to increase green cover in Jagatsinghpur district, it has not yielded the desired result. 

As Jagatsinghpur is prone to natural calamities, the Government had planned to plant trees in large numbers across the district. However, lakhs of saplings and plants supplied by the Forest department for the purpose have been destroyed due to lack of maintenance and care. 

An amount of `67.66 lakh was allocated by the District Rural Development Agency, Jagatsinghpur to DFO, Cuttack for plantation of trees under MGNREGS while `56.25 lakh was sanctioned to DFO, Rajnanagar for the purpose this year.

A glaring example of the failure of the programme is Korua panchayat under Nuagaon block. In 2016, the Forest department and Naugaon block administration had planted nearly 1,000 trees from Dhuapada village of Korua panchyat to Osakana panchyat for which `3.60 lakh was spent. However, most of the trees have been damaged. 

Assistant Soil Conservation Officer Srikant Das said the Forest department had spent `1.63 lakh towards plantation on the bed of Gobari river in Kurki village under Naugaon block in 2016. Nearly 500 trees were planted. After two years, 99 pc of trees have been completely destroyed, he added. 

Sapan Kumar Swain, a volunteer engaged by the Forest department, complained that he has not been paid remuneration to look after the plantation programme in Nuagaon. He said neither district administration nor DRDA officials have visited the nurseries set up under the programme to monitor the activity. Lack of fencing and irrigation facility have destroyed thousands of saplings. Besides, deforestation of ‘Casuarina’ trees in the mangrove forest region of Bay of Bengal has been going on at an alarming rate posing danger to the plantations in the coastal areas of the district.