Coming down heavily on the Union government over the issue of forest fires in Uttarakhand, the Supreme Court on Wednesday asked why only Rs 3.15 crore were given to the state when it asked for Rs 10 crore to tackle the issue. The top court also asked the Centre why forest officials were deputed to election duty while the incidents of forest fires were being reported.
“Why only 3.15 crore was given to the state when it asked for 10 cores to control forest fires… When Uttarakhand had forest fires, why forest officials were deputed to election duty,” the apex court asked the government.
“You showed us a rosy picture when things were worse,” it added.
The hearing was adjourned for a few hours and will resume at 3 pm today.
Earlier on May 8, while hearing the matter, the Supreme Court said cloud seeding or “depending on rain god” is not the answer to the raging forest fires in Uttarakhand and that authorities will have to take preventive measures to tackle the problem. The Uttarakhand government apprised the apex court about the steps taken to control the forest fires and said 0.1 per cent of the wildlife cover in the state was on fire due to such incidents.
The state government told a bench of Justices B R Gavai and Sandeep Mehta that since November last year, there were 398 forest fires in Uttarakhand and five people were killed in such incidents.
Deputy Advocate General of Uttarakhand Jatinder Kumar Sethi told the court that all the fires were man-made. A total of 388 criminal cases have been lodged in connection with the forest fires, he said, adding that 60 people have been named in those.
“People say that 40 per cent of Uttarakhand is on fire, whereas 0.1 per cent of the wildlife cover was on fire. And all this was man-made. From November till today, we have 398 fires, all man-made,” the counsel said. The court was hearing an application that has raised the issue of raging forest fires in Uttarakhand.
While hearing a petition on forest fires in 2019, the apex court had observed that such incidents pose a serious problem in hill states, especially during summer, and the reason is the presence of a large number of pine trees, which are highly flammable.
It was hearing a plea moved by advocate Rituparn Uniyal seeking urgent steps to protect forests, wildlife and birds from wildfires in Uttarakhand, saying the number of such blazes has increased over the years and these incidents cause massive damage to the environment.
The petition has sought directions to the Centre, the Uttarakhand government and the principal chief conservator of forests in the hill state for making pre-fire arrangements and framing a policy to prevent such incidents.
