AGARTALA, Aug 12 (TIWN): Gana Mukti Parishad (GMP) President Jitendra Choudhury has written a letter to Prakash Javadekar, the Minister of Environment, Forests and Climate Change against ongoing certification audit of the Forests lands by private hands.

In the letter, Jitendra Choudhury told Prakas Javadekar : “I am writing this letter to you on a very important matter for your immediate intervention, as it relates to fundamentals of the livelihood of the Sch. Tribe and other people, dependent on forest resources. I have been informed by a certain quarters that a team of a private company named as GICIA Private Limited Company had carried out the audit of the plantations raised by the Tripura Forest Development and Plantation Corporation Ltd. (TFDPCL) and their other activities for certification of the Rubber Plantation and were paid consultancies for the same. The Corporation also provided for the logistics and produced its records for their inspection. It has also been learned that the Director General of the Forests, Government of India had written a letter to Tripura Forest Department and other States to engage Network for Certification and Conservation of Forests (NCCF) a private body floated by some retired officers and one Mr. Sachin Jain a timber businessmen and who are working in various capacities in your Ministry to go for certification of the forests. GICIA is a sister organization of NCCF. These officers are using their influence and using the funds of the Compensatory Afforestation Authority.

What is quite disturbing is the fact that during the certification audit they are asking various questions on the payment being made to the Sch. Tribe beneficiaries and the impact of afforestation etc. They are asking questions on eco-tourism, which seems to be quite baffling that a private body is indulging in this unnecessarily and putting our forests on a monitoring map in order to certify that how we are managing our resources.

The certification we have always in India considered is irrelevant, as we do not export timber and this attempt by these officers is bringing a very bad name to the Ministry and the country. I would request you to please take appropriate action on this matter by ordering a high level inquiry on the illogical attempt to interfere in our forests management and find out why the certification at the behest of Ministry was carried out in Tripura, that too by a private agency with opaque origin, when we do not have any surplus Rubber wood even to export within India. Moreover, they may affect livelihood of the Adivasis by seeking restrictions on NTFC collection etc.

I, on behalf of my organisation(GMP), strongly protest this very vicious move, which is prone to deprive the Sch. Tribe people from getting the benefits out of forest activities in one hand and in other hand diluting the CAMPA fund for the interest of vested interests. I hope you will do the needful at an earliest”.