BJP manifesto yet another poll gimmick: Pratibha Singh
Himachal Pradesh Congress President and MP Pratibha Singh has termed BJP’s Lok Sabha poll manifesto yet another poll ‘gimmick’.
Himachal Pradesh government’s decision to set up ‘van thanas’ (forest police stations) in the state without proper planning has resulted in non-utilisation of infrastructure worth Rs 4.04 crore, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report said.
The decision to commission ‘van thanas’ was initiated in 2008 by the then Bharatiya Janata Party government in HP, with JP Nadda (now Union Health minister) as Forest minister in state.
The ‘van thanas’ were conceived to check organised forest crime.
According to the government policy, four to six forest beats were to be clubbed together to form a ‘van thana’, which would function as a collective entity, both for developmental and enforcement purposes.
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The staff of each forest police station was to be equipped with wireless sets, mobile phones, vehicles and arms to control forest offences and nab
offenders.
The CAG report said Principal Chief Conservator of Forests accorded administrative approval for construction of building of 13 forest police stations for Rs 3.94 crore. “However, 11 forest police stations, whose buildings were specially constructed, could not be made fully functional due to failure of the department to provide requisite staff, communication system and arms and ammunition,” the report said.
The report said the deployment of existing staff of forest beats to police stations in addition to their normal duties hampered the development works as well as detection of forest offences. Against 37,705 offences reported in the state from 2011 to 2014, only 407 (one per cent) were detected through the forest police stations.
The CAG report said the policy of forest police stations was abolished by the government in September 2014 as government considered the move largely unproductive. HP was the second state at that time after Madhya Pradesh where the special task force (STF) had been raised to check forest crimes.
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