The Siddhanta Das, Director General of Forests, MoEF&CC,GoI inaugurated a National Seminar on “Use of Fly Ash in Forestry Applications and Rejuvenation of Waste/Degraded lands” today at Telangana State Forest Academy. The Seminar is organized by the C-FARM and Institute of Forest Biodiversity, Hyderabad in Association with the TS Forest Department, IPMA, IPPTA, IARPMA and is sponsored by ITC.
The Das stated that the PM Narendra Modi has given Forestry sector lot of importance and committed for multi-fold increase in carbon-absorption at the Paris Summit on Climate Change. The MoEF&CC is addressing this huge challenge by increasing the quality of forests through natural/assisted regeneration and by encouraging plantations outside forest area. He also stated that the beneficial use of Fly Ash has been well documented and what is required now is to strategize its use. Notification has been issued to Thermal Power Plants to put fly ash generated by them to full use.
Dr.K.Tirupataiah, Director TS Forest Academy welcomed the delegates. Dr.RBS Rawat, Former PCCF Uttarakhand gave a brief outline of the seminar and its objectives. Dr.Vimal Kumar, Secretary General, Centre for Fly Ash Research & Management in his Key Note address informed the delegates about the research that has been carried out in the past nearly two decades by the Mission on Fly Ash under the Department of Science & Technology, by private organizations like ITC, JK, Orient etc. He stressed that adequate research results are now available on use of fly ash in forestry operations and called for extensive adoption of the technologies in forestry sector, especially by the forest department.
The P.K.Jha, PCCF TSFD stressed that logistics and economics need to be worked for transportation of fly ash from thermal plants to the plantation/nursery sites since under Telangana Ku Haritha Haaram Nurseries are being raised in each Gram Panchayat. Efforts would be made to use fly ash from this year itself. P.Sridhar, PCCF Karnataka welcomed the idea to use fly ash in forest operations and Sr.R.K.Upadhyay, PCCF Tamil Nadu called up on the organizers to work on a “Mission Mode” to realize the objective. He welcomed the C-FARM to come to Tamil Nadu and carry out Research.
Sanjay Singh, Chairman Raw Materials Committee & Div.Chief Executive ITC-PSPD traced the four decades history of ITC Paper Mill at Bhadrachalam how the idea of growing raw material outside forest area took shape. That lead to developing clonal technology in Eucalyptus, and Casuarina which have resulted in multiple-fold increase in the yields and convinced farmers to take up cultivation in their fields. Their initiative goes well with the idea of GoI to Double the Farmers’ Income. Sri.Jayaprasad, Director IFB proposed a vote of thanks.
About 100 delegates representing Forest departments, Industry, Paper mills, research institutes like NAARM, CRIDA etc are participating in the seminar. The Recommendations of the seminar would be shared with MoEF&CC and forest departments for implementation.
