Forget wildlife conservation: State Forest Deptt itself severly understaffed, 70% posts vacant
   Date :29-May-2023

Forget wildlife 
 
 
 
By Kaushik Bhattacharya
The severe understaffing from the rank of Range Forest Officers (RFOs) to Assistant Conservators (ACFs) to Divisional Forest Officers (DFOs) in the State’s Forest Department is hampering efforts of wildlife conservation, and prevention of destruction of wildlife habitats in the State for the past three years. As per the data available with Department of Revenue and Forest, Government of Maharashtra, the Forest Department has 76 posts of DFOs vacant in all divisions. Only 33 of the 109 sanctioned posts are filled. This means, 70 per cent of the positions are still vacant.
All newly-appointed ACFs in the department have to go through a two-year a training after they get seniority. But due to some obligations, they failed to get their appointments in the department. As a result, ACFs knocked the doors of judiciary. After two years of legal battle, the Supreme Court instructed the Government of Maharashtra to fill all vacant posts in the department.

Forget wildlife conservation 
According to the sources, even after one month of getting orders from the Apex Court the posts remain vacant. State Government issued a Government Resolution (GR) regarding formation of Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC), which is still not acted upon. The committee is responsible to verify the documents of the eligible ACFs for appointment. However, the offices of Chief Conservator of Forest (CCF) in all divisions are yet to send the documents of ACFs to Van Bhavan for further development.
As per the sources, the entire procedure of filling all the vacant posts in the statemay take more than 2-3 months. Meanwhile, the conservation of forest and wildlife, action against encroachment, mitigation of man animal conflict which are the major issues before the department will get hamper due to lack of trained work-force. Nagpur Circle has the highest 38 number of posts, of which 27 are vacant and 11 junior officers are responsible for the core job of the Forest Department. “Every forest officer is responsible for so many hectares of land in forest. But shortfall in manpower restrict the department in effective conservation of forest and other core work that require to keep our forests healthy,” said Ajay Patil, National President, Maharashtra Rajya Vanrakshak va Padonnat Vanpal Sanghthan. “There is a shortfall on the post of forest guards and Van Majoors in all over the state. The department should actively take steps to fill all posts from officer rank to Van Majoor level,” said Patil.