Hyderabad: The Relaxing Forest Transit Permit Regime to Encourage Agro Forestry, As per the Telangana Forest Produce Transit Rules 1970, felling and transportation of forest produce requires permission from the Forest Department and transit permit. Under Rule 16 of Transit Rules, forest produce listed under Schedule II and Schedule III are exempted from the purview of transit permit. Under Schedule II earlier (20) species of trees were exempted from the Transit Permit. Under Schedule III fruits and seed (NTFP) of certain forest species have been exempted from the Transit Rules.
To reduce burden on the forests and to encourage production of wood outside the forest area to meet the industrial and other needs, the State Government has liberalized the Transit Rules recently. The Government have issued orders in G.O.Ms.No. 32, EFS & T (For.I) Dept., (copy enclosed) expanding the list of exempted species in Schedule II from (20) species to (40) species. On account of such liberalization, farmers can raise such (40) type of tree species in their farmlands and cut them and sell them in the market without taking any permission from the Forest Department or without taking any transit permit. It will increase income of farmers apart from increasing supply of wood from non forest areas to meet the increasing demand of industries, construction activities and other domestic requirements.
The important species among the (40) species exempted includes Bamboo, Eucalyptus, Casuarina, Subabul, Semathumma, Ashoka, Thadi, Coconut, Cashew, Seemchintha, Raintree and imported timber of species not grown in India. Mango is exempted in all districts except Schedule areas and Nalgonda district. Panasa is exempted in all Revenue districts except tribal areas in the State.
The most important initiative is exempting the Bamboo from the Forest Transit Regime. It is well known that Bamboo is extensively used in the Rural areas and by Burood Societies depending on the Bamboo products. Bamboo is rightly called as“common mantimber”. Bamboo can be planted easily and it is ready for harvesting in six years onwards and it can be cut every year subject to certain technical prescriptions. In addition, Bamboo can be cut at any time in the year except three months during rainy season and as such it acts like a readily available cash to the farmers, which can be used to meet contingent expenditure including purchase of seeds and fertilizers by the farmers.
The Forest Department makes appeal to the farmers to take advantage of the relaxation given by the State Government recently and to grow more and more trees under Agro Forestry, which will help in increasing the green tree cover from 24% to 33% as envisaged under Telangana kuHaritha Haram (TKHH).
