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NGOs/Stakeholders
Sawmills
62 (sixtytwo) saw mills were cleared for relocation and
operation by HPC which was constituted as per orders of
Hon’ble Supreme court. The saw mills are to be located in
Industrial Estates (IEs) established along with IE check
posts. In the State Forestry Action Plan for the state of
Tripura approved by the Government, it has been assessed
that the total requirement of timber in the state is 61000
cum/annum, while the forests are able to yield only about
41000 cum of timber/annum. Thus there is shortage of about
20,000 cum of timber per annum. Major part of this need is
met from trees originating from private lands. The
extraction of trees from the private land is regulated by
the forest department by issuing permits after joint
verification of trees by Revenue and Forest Department,
carrying out stand/log marking and by issuing transit pass
for movement of such extracted timber.
At present State Government does not provide any raw
material to the wood based industries and there is no policy
in this regard. Neither subsidized pricing of raw material
supply to wood based industries is in practice. There is no
lease agreement on any forest area for collection right of
wood. The owners of such industries procure raw material
from private settlements and through competitive bidding in
Forest Department’s auction of seized timber. No legal
felling are carried out in the forests to supply timber to
industries/saw mills. The timber seized in connection with
forest offences are disposed off through auction to Forest
Trade License (FTL) holders on the basis of notified floor
price/ex-field depot price (copy enclosed in Annexure-1).
Such disposed timber is procured by industries/saw mills for
processing.
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