SHIMLA: The chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu while presiding over the first meeting of the governing body of Himachal Pradesh State Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (HP CAMPA), at HIPA on Monday late evening, said that instead of raising plantations in a sporadic manner, it should be done in a planned manner on the barren hills and other large open patches in a phased manner in the entire state.
He said that plantation should be done keeping in mind the suitable climatic conditions and dedicated staff would be deployed as protectors to take care of the plantations in a responsible and accountable manner.
Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said that new initiatives for the restoration of degraded forest landscapes in the state will be started under HP CAMPA in the year 2023-24. Reiterating that the state government was working towards ‘Vyavastha Parivartan', he said that the campaign would be more focused and barren forest land would be covered to achieve the goal of the ‘Green State’.
The Forest Department has identified such areas in all 12 districts of the state covering more than 256 hectare of barren forest land along with 5-year maintenance period with a proposed outlay of around Rs 8.83 crore.
He said that local representatives of the area should also be involved in this campaign. He said that land banks would be identified in degraded areas and utilized for proposing compensatory afforestation schemes under FCA diversion projects. He also directed the authority for proper monitoring and SDM concerned should be involved in it.
The chief minister said that one model nursery would be developed in each Forest Division of the state in the year 2023-24. He said that these 45 nurseries would have facilities like vermi compost units, poly houses, green houses, sprinklers, root trainers and tissue culture labs etc.
