A scene from Sholay educates people on penal provisions for starting forest fires.
With the forest fire season already on and rising temperatures likely to worsen matters in May and June, Uttarakhand’s forest department is using famous Bollywood dialogues to spread awareness among the public about preventing such blazes.
The initiative has begun on a pilot basis in Rudraprayag district.
Forest fires in the current season — started in February — have already claimed two lives and injured one person in Bageshwar district, apart from affecting 11 hectares of land. In 2019, 2,158 incidents of forest fires had affected 2,981 hectares in the state.
With the coronavirus lockdown this year giving him a breather from his regular duties, Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) of Rudraprayag division, Vaibhav Kumar Singh, decided to come up with a more effective way to create awareness about the causes of forest fires and the penal provisions attached with them.
Singh, in a month, searched the most popular dialogues of Bollywood movies online and designed posters around them.
Rajjo says it like it is.
“I shortlisted 20 popular dialogues from different movies and ultimately zeroed down on four I thought were the most attractive and catchy. Over 1,500 posters with these dialogues and photos of movie scenes have been printed and displayed at public places in town areas,” Singh told The Indian Express. One such poster shows Gabbar Singh — from “Sholay”—asking sidekick Sambha about the fine and punishment for starting a forest fire. The answer is written below — “a fine of Rs 5000 and two years of imprisonment”.
In another poster with a grab from movie “The Dirty Picture”, actor Vidya Balan repeats “carelessness…carelessness…carelessness” as three reasons for forest fires. One posters is based on the dialogue of Sonakshi Sinha in the movie “Dabangg”, and another is from movie “Krantiveer”, with actor Nana Patekar saying “aa gaye jungle ki aag ka tamasha dekhne..”
Singh said he had noticed that the awareness messages displayed on roadsides were not catchy enough for people to stop and spend time reading them.
The poster based on Krantiveer.
“People would often tell us they were not aware of fines and punishment for forest fires. So I decided to use popular dialogues of Bollywood movies to sensitise them about causes, legal provisions, master control room numbers and a mobile application they can use to inform department staff about forest fire incidents,” Singh said.
About the response to the new initiative, Singh said the common people have stated spreading photos of these posters on WhatsApp and other social media platforms, and have started talking about the issue.
Singh briefed officials at state headquarters in Dehradun about this initiative on Monday.
Three reasons for forest fires.
“The posters have been used on a pilot basis in the Rudraprayag district so far. If the initiative gets a good response, it will be replicated in other parts of the state,” said BK Gangte, nodal officer (forest fire), Uttarakhand forest department. Gangte said that as most forest fires are man-made, creating awareness among masses is important to prevent such incidents.
In Rudraprayag district, almost 70 per cent area (around 1.25 lakh hectare) is forest-covered. The entire state has forest area of around 38000 sq km, which is almost 71 per cent of its geographical area.