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Journalism of Courage
CHANDIGARH, July 21: Nearly 1,100 Sheesham or `tali’ tress as commonly known, have dried up and perished in the past three years in the Nurpur Bedi area of the district. Highly placed sources in the Forest Department revealed that recently more than 150 trees dried up taking the total figure to almost 1,100 in the third consecutive year.
Though the problem has been persisting during these years, the exact reason for the mass destruction of tress along the 43-km Roopnagar-Garhshankar highway is not known. Authorities here attribute it to water-logging in the nearby fields. A quick survey of the area revealed that a large number of trees on either side of the highway have dried up. Especially, those along the Nurpur Bedi-Bhadi stretch of road have been destroyed at an alarming proportion.
Interestingly, it is only Sheesham which is affected in this belt of the district and not any other trees belonging to the Forest Department or zila parishad. As Sheesham is a very costly wood, its destruction on a mass scale has led to apprehensions among the residents, who suspect the `hand’ of a timber mafia.
When contacted, Deputy Divisional Forest Officer R.S. Awasthi categorically ruled this out. He, however, agreed that the destruction has mostly been reported from the Nurpur Bedi area. According to Awasthi, the drying up of Sheesham was first noticed in 1996, when 641 tress perished. This was followed by 347 trees in 1997.
Most of the these trees were between 30-35 years old, which is far below their maturity age of 50 to 60 years. It is now expected that each of these trees will not fetch more than Rs 600 for the Forest Department as royalty. This would not have been the case if the trees were mature.
Interestingly, the forest officials have not yet approached any of the environment institutes in the region to get the matter investigated. A senior forest official of the area quipped: “Since the loss is very minor and there is hardly a complaint from any other part of the state, the possibilities of such investigation are remote.”
He agreed that unless the department approaches a Dehradun-based forest research institute of the Punjab Agricultural University for investigation, the exact cause behind the destruction would be hard to establish.
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