Forest fire in Uttarakhand - role of timber mafia suspected

Uttarakhand is battling the forest fires that started nearly 88 days ago and have so far destroyed nearly 3,000 acres of forest cover. The National Disaster Response Force teams have already fanned out in 13 affected areas of three districts of Pauri Garhwal, Almora and Chamoli with firefighting equipment to tackle the massive blaze. The images from satellites have reported that the forest fire has gone out in over 70 percent of the affected areas.
This has been reported in zeenews.india.com/news dated 2 May 2016.

Unconfirmed reports suggest that the role of timber mafia in the increase in forest fires in the state is being looked into. Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar has indicated that there are some reports from various quarters and these are being investigated.
It seems there is an alleged nexus between the timber mafia and the Forest Development Corporation, which has the authority to sell the trees via auction, which are dead or dried. Selling the trees which have been burnt would give a huge revenue to the corporation and also benefit the timber mafia that would buy them. Moreover, the land that would get cleared from trees due to forest fires can be sold in land transfer cases - this would benefit the builder lobby. Obviously, such forest fires mean benefits to different sections of people.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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