Shocked at casual response, NGT puts U’khand, HP on notice

Vibha Sharma 

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 3

Worried over what is believed to be largely a manmade crisis due to poor forest management practices, the National Green Tribunal today expressed shock at the way everybody concerned was taking the raging forest fires in Uttarakhand and HP “so casually”.

Issuing show-cause notices to both the states, a Bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar asked the respective governments to inform about their “preparedness to prevent such incidents” and the preventive steps taken by them prior to the fire incident and management plans to ascertain the “cause of fire”. The green court also took the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to task. “What have you (MoEF) done regarding the fire? It shocks us. Everybody is taking it so casually,” the Bench said.

Ministry officials, meanwhile, said the Centre had taken the forest fires “very seriously” and was working on a strategy for the overall management of such fires in future.

LS clears forest fund Bill 

The Lok Sabha on Tuesday cleared the Compensatory Afforestation Fund (CAF) Bill, 2015, which aims to unlock Rs 42,000 crore for increasing forest cover and setting up national and state-level authorities to check compulsory afforestation. Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said the fund would also help build contingency capacities in forests