CM restructures State Board of Wildlife

Staff Reporter

Government of Maharashtra has finally restructured the 29-member State Board of Wildlife (SBWL) and released names of the new team, on Wednesday. After coming into power in 2022, the BJP-Sena Government dissolved the previous SBWL constituted by the then Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) Government. After a long wait, the BJP-Sena Government restructured the SBWL, a committee consisting of Government-led institutions, on Wednesday. The State Government had a proposal to constitute a full-fledged board to take wildlife-related decisions, since it came to power in 2022. Finally, considering the proposal, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde reconstituted the committee which will have 29 new members with he himself as chief and Forest Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar as deputy.

The State Board of Wildlife is responsible for taking key conservation-related and policy-making decisions for all 49 wildlife sanctuaries, including six tiger reserves, five national parks, and protected forests in Maharashtra. It also issues clearances to development projects, suggests wildlife mitigation measures, and acts as the recommending body for notification of new protected areas. The SBWL will be exercising powers in line with the Wildlife Act, 1972. On Wednesday evening, the Maharashtra government announced and issued a Government Resolution (GR) stating that the Chief Minister would be the President of the Board, with Forest Minister as Vice-President. MLA Sameer Meghe, MLA Ashish Jaiswal, Dhananjay Bapat, and Shrikant Tekade have been named as members of the SBWL from Nagpur. The new body has been restructured for a period of three years.

The new body will be as follows: Chief Minister (President), Forest Minister (Vice-President), while Sameer Meghe (Nagpur), Sandeep Dhurve (Yavatmal), Ashish Jaiswal (Nagpur), representatives of Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), Wildlife Conservation Trust, Tiger Research and Conservation Trust, Dr Ankur Patwardhan (Pune), Neha Panchmiya (Pune), Raman Kulkarni (Kolhapur), Anuj Khare (Pune), Kiran Shelar (Mumbai), Pravin Pardeshi (Mumbai), Dhananjay Bapat (Nagpur), Shrikant Tekade (Nagpur), Chaitram Pawar (Dhule), Vinayak Thalkar (Palghar), Principal Secretary (Forest), Principal Secretary (Tribal Development), Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (HoFF), Managing Director (Maharashtra State Tourism Board), Inspector General of Police, Brigadier ranked representative of Armed Forces, Commissioner (Animal Husbandry), Commissioner (Fisheries), Representative of MoEF&CC, Wildlife Institute of India (WII) Dehradun, Botanical Survey of India, and Zoological Survey of India are the members of the SBWL. Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (Wildlife) will be the Member Secretary.