Japan aid for forest growth

Alipurduar, Aug. 5: Japan government will spend over Rs 400 crore in Bengal over the next eight years for afforestation and development of the people depending on the forests.

The funds will be released by the Japan International Co-operative Agency (JICA) and north Bengal will also be covered under the project.

N.C. Bahuguna, the additional principal chief conservator of forest in Bengal, told The Telegraph over the phone from Calcutta that the main thrust of the project would be to increase the green cover in the state.

?We will mainly plant more trees and increase the forest cover. The project also entails the plantation of more trees inside the forest. Another aim is community development. The funds will be used to build roads and community halls and to start few projects that will provide alternative source of income for people depending on forest. The community development will be taken up with the involvement of 600 forest protection committees in the state,? said Bahuguna.

Forest minister Hiten Barman said an agreement had been signed by the Centre, Bengal government and the JICA for the Rs 406 crore grant. ?The funds will be spent in the state over eight years. We have to start repaying the money from the tenth year at an interest rate of 0.65 per cent. The entire amount has to be repaid with interest in 40 years,? he said.

The forest officer said the Japan-funded project would also cover grassland development, electrification of fences and plantation of trees that would act as fodder for elephants.

?A Project Management Unit comprising forest officers has been formed to implement the scheme. A project director will be in charge of the unit whose main job is to monitor the field work (plantation of trees and community development) and maintain the accounts of the project properly. S.B. Patel, the chief conservator of forest, has recently visited different forests in north Bengal to check how the project can be implemented properly in the region,? said Bahuguna.

As of now, the project director has to perform his original responsibilities also.

?Later, we will post a project director exclusively for the scheme,? said Bahuguna.

Barman said the Social Forestry wing of his department that carried out the afforestaion at present would work jointly with the Project Management Unit for the execution of the scheme.

Records show Bengal has a forest area of 13.4 per cent. If the trees along rivers, roads and canals are also taken into account, the state?s total green cover is 19 per cent against the ideal figure of 33 per cent. At the national level, the total green cover is 22 per cent.

Source: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120806/jsp/siliguri/story_15818736.jsp

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