The Maharashtra government has begun a crackdown on its Multani community which has a record of smuggling timber from Telangana. An early morning raid on Chikhli village in Kinwat taluk in Nanded district, about 55 km from Adilabad district headquarters, by a posse of armed policemen from Maharashtra State Reserve Police and forest officials on February 2 yielded 29 tractors and one van full of illegally felled teak wood and unfinished furniture.
The raiding team even used a drone to locate the contraband timber in and around Chikhli which has 550 households and a population of 2,500 Multanis. The community in this village which lies 15 km away from the Taluka headquarters and about 6 km from the inter-State border near Dedra village in Bazarhatnoor mandal of Adilabad district shares relationship with the Multanis of Ichoda mandal.
The move of the neighbouring State’s department in control of forest offences compliments the ongoing special drive undertaken with the same objective by the Telangana government. The latter has lost enormous stretches of teak wood forest in Kosai, Umri, Ratnapur and Chittakarra in Talamadugu mandal and Vagai tanda, Dedra and Mankapur in Bazarhatnoor mandal over the years. “For the next two months at least we will act tough with the timber smugglers,” declared Kinwat Sub Divisional Forest Officer Rajendra Nale. Talking to The Hindu at his office, Mr. Nale also referred to the smuggling of timber on trains.
‘Create awareness’
Activist and regional coordinator of Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram organisation in Kinwat, Govardhan Munde, however, also wanted the department to create awareness among forest communities about the loss of their forests. He demanded implementation of the Section 3 (1) (i) under Community Forest Rights of the Forest Rights Act, 2006 so that the vegetation can be protected by local communities. “The Forest Department also needs to stop timber being smuggled out to Nizamabad saw mills from Bodhdi, a village about 17 km from Kinwat on Nanded route,” he added.