Virbhadra Singh, Chief Minister, met Union Minister of State for Forest and Environment S.Raghupathy
in Shimla today. He raised critical issues with him with regard to Himachal and
its people, some of the issues he raised are:
- To withdraw the un-gazetted notification of 1952 bringing all the waste land under the demarcated protected forest (DPF) to facilitate the state government carry its developmental activities unhampered.
- CM said that the process to obtain permission was time consuming and hampering the pace of development, hence the notification needed to be withdrawn in the interest of the state.
- CM asked Union Minister to fix standards for minimum and maximum widths of all the transmission lines since a number of hydro electric projects were under execution in the state and more such were likely to be allotted for execution in the near future.
- Chief Minister said that the Union Ministry needed to adopt the earlier procedure of supporting the Eco Task Battalions, employing ex-servicemen to undertake massive afforestation and soil conservation activities. He said that there was one such battalion functioning in the state and two more were likely to be raised in the near future which would open employment avenues to the ex-servicemen and the Union Government needed to support the state government in this direction. He said that the state was spending Rs. 2.5 crore on each such battalion.
- Virbhadra Singh said that to help check monkey menace the Union Government needed to help establish
at least six more units assigned the job of sterilization of the monkeys as only one such unit was operational at the moment.
S.Raghupathy, Union Minister of State for Forest and Environment assured the Chief Minister that he would be raising all the issues of the state interest at appropriate level and put in best of his efforts to deliver the state desired relief. He said that the Union Government would be liberal in granting forest clearances for developmental activities.
