(IN): Kaziranga: Govt creates more posts

[Guest guest]

link: http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070020325

 

Kaziranga: Govt creates more posts

 

Kishalay Bhattacharjee

Thursday, July 26, 2007 (Guwahati)

As species move towards extinction and poachers get aggressive, the

Assam government creates more posts for top forest officers, rather

than a skeletal force of forest guards who in reality must fight the

battle.

 

After 10 rhinos were slaughtered in Kaziranga in the past four months,

the Assam government has decided to do something about it.

 

But what it has planned may not be the solution at all. The government

is creating 14 senior posts for conservation officers. Experts say

these are unnecessary.

 

Ten years ago the park was doing well under just two senior officers.

What the park needs is junior staff for patrolling the forest.

 

937 posts vacant

 

There are currently 937 posts of forest staff vacant and no new

appointments have been made since 1989.

 

''This is not a very healthy development. In our time we required only

500 dedicated and sincere workers in Kaziranga. Camps are now vacant

and poachers take full advantage of it. They are forcing territorial

and social forestry people to join.

 

''They are reluctant and they don't know wildlife. You have to fill up

lower rank vacancies,'' said K K Baruah, Retired PCCF.

 

Even the latest report of the Comptroller and Auditor General points

out that there is 80 to 88 per cent shortage of junior staff in Kaziranga.

 

It also raises questions about expenditure and diversion of funds. The

CAG is not sure whether the funds allocated by the Centre were

utilised properly or not.

 

It's not just the rhino that's a victim. According to UK based

Environmental Investigation Agency parks in the northeast have just

about twenty tigers left.