Gaighat, February 8

Logs worth millions have been stranded for want of proper trading procedures in various forests of Udayapur.

A large number of trees of different national and community forests had fallen due to heavy storms in mid-May last year.

Though District Forest Office has took stock of the trees, it has not done anything to manage the logs so far. “A large number of logs have been smuggled due to lack of proper management and a proper trading process,” said Assistant Forest Officer Lal Babu Yadav.

More than one lakh cubic feet of log has been left in an abandoned state in those forests.

“More than six months have passed since we took account of the logs, but we have not been able to proceed with them for trade so far due to lack of approval from the Department of Forest,” he added.

According to DFO, as many as 8,856 sal trees from 92 community forests and 1,288 other species of trees have fallen. Logs around 5 lakh cubic feet are lying in the forests and need to be moved, said Yadav.

Amit Chaudhary, Shiva Baba Community Forest Consumers’ Committee member, said that the locals had been openly using the logs.