Today, if that ill-famed Veerappan is caught by either the Karnataka or the Tamil Nadu government, no one seems to be sure as to who exactly will prosecute him -- but it will certainly not be the forest department. The reason: Forest officials are not properly empowered to undertake prosecution.

Some select forest bureaucrats discussed issues on the draft Forest Act amendment bill at a recent workshop conducted at the Indian Forest Academy campus at Dehra Dun under the aegis of the Centre for Environmental Law (CEL) of the World Wide Fund For Nature-India, the Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests.

Subjects discussed included amendments to the Indian Forest Act; NGOs' role in conservation and protection; arbitrary decrees by officials; forest law and international obligations; lacunae in various legislation; and judicial trends in forest cases. Former Pollution Control Board member S R Hiremath who represented the Dharwad-based Samaj Parivartana Samudaya argued for empowerment of people in the form of village bodies in the matters of forest protection. However, CEL Director Chattarpati Singh disagreed. If whatever the departments are not doing were to be passed on to the people,it may follow that if public works department does not lay roads people may have to take up road construction and so on.

The important resolutions on the proposed Draft Forest Bill were:

* The prerogative of constituting reserve forests should be the state's, not the centre's.

* A forest official not below the rank of a range officer should complete settlement proceedings within a time frame.

* The fate of a seized property should be clarified in case the alleged offender is acquitted.

* Use of force (opening fire) to prevent major forest offence should be given to forest officers.

* The state government power to revise the arrangement arrived at in the settlement proceeding (Sec 15) within five years of publication of notice will cause perpetual fear in the minds of people.

This should not be revised as it is the outcome of an agreement reached with the claimant.

F.I.R. -- Coal supply to steel

Coal supply to the steel sector, the second-largest user after the power sector, has slumped in the first quarter of 1997-98. During April-June, supply of coal to the steel sector by Coal India Limited (CIL) fell to 1.77 million tonnes from 2.02 million tonnes during the same period last year. N K Ragupathi, joint secretary (steel) is quoted as saying that coal intake in the steel industry has gone down because steel-makers are liquidating inventories. The 12.38 per cent reduction in supply to the steel industry in the first quarter is against a projected supply of 2.24 million tonnes.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.