Environment ministry’s monitoring committee has no funds

The high level monitoring committee (HLMC) appointed by the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) to monitor the twin hill station eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) of Panchgani and Mahabaleshwar, has no funds to call their own.

Chairman of HLMC, Devrath Mehta, expressed his frustration to DNA in an interview on Wednesday evening in Mahabaleshwar and said that this deficiency greatly hampered work.

Mehta, a retired bureaucrat and former municipal commissioner of Pune, has been heading the HLMC from November 2009 and will be in office till May 2012. Mehta said, “Ideally, the MoEF should have given clear directions in their ESZ notification that at least 5 per cent of the district planning development council (DPDC) funds should have been earmarked for the HLMC’s effective functioning.”

According to Mehta, at present the HLMC is not able to appoint lawyers or technical consultants to help them because of zero funds.

Mehta also complained that the state government was not interested in the ESZ status of the twin hill stations of Mahabaleshwar and Panchgani. He quoted the example of the forest department and said it lacked manpower and financial resources to monitor an ESZ.

The only saving grace, according to Mehta, was the release of Rs10 lakh by the Satara collector from DPDC funds recently to prepare forest survey maps. “These maps are extremely important and need to be kept in a digitised format with  the tehsildar, forest officer and sub-divisional officer (SDO) to monitor development in the forest area,” Mehta said.

He expressed concern about rising cases of tree cutting and forest fires surrounding Mahabaleshwar. “The forest department is suffering from lack of manpower. The state government should have beefed up the forest team in the ESZ, but this has not happened,” he said.

The HLMC has asked the MoEF to delink the tourism master plan from the regional plan for Mahabaleshwar and Panchgani.