Sangat Singh Gilzian, Punjab’s minister of
forests, wildlife, and labour, unveiled an online portal for timber-based wood
enterprises on Tuesday, as well as a ‘pun forest’ mobile phone app to track the
department’s plantation and protection activities in the field.
The web platform, according to Gilzian, was
created to help the state’s forestry industries grow and to make the
registration and licencing process easier. The industries will be able to
obtain registration and licence within the specified time frames and with
complete transparency.
According to the forest minister, this
measure will create revenue of around Rs 10 to 15 crore, as well as direct and
indirect employment for around 10,000 people. Similarly, timber traders will
benefit from GST revenue.
Punjab Regulation of Sawmills, Veneer and
Plywood Industries Rules, 2006 was enacted in the state to govern timber-based
industries, according to him. Agroforestry kinds such as Populus, Dek, Toot,
Silver Oak, and others, however, will not require a licence and will only
require registration from the forest department, according to recommendations
given by the Government of India in 2016.
Furthermore, the formation of timber-based
companies using agroforestry types of timber would have a substantial impact on
farmer agro-forestry growth, increased forest area, and increased farmer
income.
According to the laws issued by the state
government in 2018, industrialists will be charged Rs 10 per foot as a green
fee for using the wood that has been used to plant new trees and for the
benefit of industrialists.
According to him, the Punjab government
performed a survey with the Indian Institute of Forest, Dehradun, which found
that the state’s forest area has expanded from 32 lakhs metric tonnes to 37
lakhs metric tonnes cubic.
He said that in the previous five years, no
licences had been issued to timber-based industries, but that now the Punjab
Department of Forest and Wildlife Protection has provided the facility for
registration of timber-based industries located more than 10 kilometres away
from block forests, in order to boost the state’s timber industries and create
jobs. Traders would also receive a fair price for the timber.
He stated that the forest department’s
website has been entirely upgraded and updated in order to make all of the
department’s services available to the public online through a single gateway.
The Pun Forest Mobile App, according to
Gilzian, was created to track forest and wildlife conservation personnel’
plantation and preservation efforts in the field.
He stated that the department’s officers and
personnel would update the app with images of the plantations, daily planting
progress, and data of the plantation sites. Courtesy : www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com
