Rautahat, December 8

Without proper monitoring and supervision from the concerned agency, the smuggling of timber from the forests of Rautahat has increased of late.

Smugglers have set up temporary saw mills in the forests that are under the Gaindatar Area Forest Office.

Over a dozen such saw mills have been reportedly set up for smuggling saal timber from the forests.

Hundreds of saal trees have reportedly been felled at forests of Gaidatar, Dhansar, Brindaban, and Rangapur.

Locals blamed lack of monitoring by the concerned agency for increased smuggling of saal timber.

“Smuggling increased after the government staff stopped patrolling the area,” Karna Bahadur Kushwar, a local   said. Kushwar went so far as to accuse forest officials of colluding with smugglers. “The District Forest Office is only 7 kilometres away from where the smugglers are felling trees in the forest. There is no way the officials are unaware of this,” Kushwar said.

Five forest officials including then DFO Shree Bhagawan Gupta were transferred to the ministry after media covered news of the smuggling of 20 saal trees at Dhansar area six months ago. After that, Rambabu Sah was assigned the post of DFO in Rautahat. Two months after his appointment, smuggling had subsided.

“After Sah was transferred to Bhojpur under political pressure, Dirgha Koirala was made the new DFO. With Koirala’s appointment, timber smuggling has increased,” locals said.

DFO Koirala admitted six tress were cut in Gaindatar area. He, however, expressed ignorance about tree felling at other places. He acknowledged the staff had stopped patrolling forests because of the cold. He pledged to deploy patrol teams shortly.