Mangalore : Forest Minister B Ramanath Rai said that few significant resolutions including the re-organization of the department and transfer of the department staff and officials through counselling process were passed.

He was speaking after chairing the State-level meeting of the top forest officials, at Jungle Lodges in Pilikula on September 19.

Later during the Interaction with the media, Minister Rai said that the department has been decided to organize the department by creating new posts and re-shuffling existing posts.

Rai also said that the forest jurisdiction which has been allotted to forest guard, deputy range forest officer and range forest officer will be revised.

He also said that forest guard looks after 1,500 to 2,000 hectares of land, which will be reduced to 1,000 hectares; forest jurisdiction of DRFO will be reduced from 5,000 hectares to 3,000 hectares and of the RFO’s range will be reduced from 15,000 hectare to 9,000 hectare.

Further the department will create over 5,000 posts for the purpose. Apart from it, a committee led by Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (PCCF) has been formed to study the matter and proposal in this regard will be submitted to the government within 15 days, he said.

Department has decided to use ICT – Information and Communication Technology to survey the deemed forest through satellite imagery. Measures will be taken to remove the non-forest-oriented land in the deemed forest areas from the classification of forest.

Union government has decided to implement the Tiger project but State government is yet to issue a notification. Before issuing the notification, State government will discuss on the pros and cons of the project.