Forest dept struggles with funds shortage for plantation and water management activities

Pune: The district forest division is struggling to conduct pre-plantation activities, fill waterholes, and remove invasive plants, such as gliricidia, due to funds crunch.
The department has been told to rely on schemes such as MGNREGS that provide employment to daily wage workers for plantation works.
However, due to increasing industrial development on Pune outskirts, making possible for labourers to easily earn Rs 1,000 daily, there is unwillingness on the part of workers to engage in plantation work, where possibility of earning is less. This affected plantation work, with even former forest officials criticizing lack of funding for over last two years.
During every financial year, the department sets a target for conducting plantations on 1,000 hectares of forest land, covering an average of at least 700 hectares every year with diverse native indigenous species of trees, along with shrubs, herbs, and bamboo, based on the topography of the land. However, last year, with a total of 79 hectares of land available for plantation, the department was able to plant only 88,600 trees, only 10 percent of average every year, a record low.
"Labour charges have increased to Rs 1,000 per day; however, under our schemes, we can only provide a maximum of Rs 450 per day. The labourers do not want to dig ditches for pre-monsoon work during January-March when they can earn more in other daily wage professions. We will now try to allocate more funds through Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) this year. If we had more funds, we could have decided on the plantation that could be carried out, but now we have to wait till April to see how many labourers we can get to go ahead with our work," said Mahadev Mohite, deputy conservator of forest, Pune.
The department is also facing problems in providing water for waterholes in most areas across its jurisdiction. "We have to get water tanks either through CSR funds or through the help of NGOs as there is not much funding for it. We have to pitch in and call for water tankers as it is necessary during this period to fill the waterholes in the forest as the wildlife would start moving out of the region otherwise. We need proper allocation of funds for this as we have to fill waterholes at least twice a month," said Prakash Shinde, range forest officer, Vadgaon Maval.