Telangana: Forest department wants to expedite cattle kill compensations

To do away with the cumbersome process, the Forest department wants to dispense the compensation through the District Forest Officer within a week

Hyderabad: The Forest department is working on expediting cattle kill compensation payments. At present, the cattle kill compensation payment is consuming a lot of time as officials have to collect the application and submit the details. Based on the fund availability, the treasury clears the bills and this exercise at times consumes 15 days to one month.

To do away with the cumbersome process, the Forest department wants to dispense the compensation through the District Forest Officer within a week. The funds would be deposited into the beneficiary’s bank accounts or cheques will be issued to the cattle owner, said a senior official from the department.

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Generally, the officials conduct a panchnama and rope in a valuation officer from animal husbandry department to fix the cost of the cattle killed by wild animals. Then village sarpanch has to issue a local cattle certificate for filing the application for compensation.

On an average, about five to six human deaths are reported annually in human and animal conflict and 10 to 20 injury cases. As per the old compensation rules, annually Rs 60 to Rs 70 lakh would have to be spent towards payments for cattle kill or human deaths, the official said.

Apart from bearing the entire medical treatment expenditure, the forest department also pays exgratia to the victim’s family. Telangana government had recently increased compensation to the families of victims, who lost lives in the human-animal conflicts from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh.

Under the revised rates, the department may now require Rs 2 crore annually for compensation payments, the official added.

Forest department to seek Rs 445 crore for afforestation measure

Amidst speculation that the State government may rename the Haritha Haram programme commencing from June this year, the Forest department is planning to seek Rs 445 crore for afforestation measures from the government among other requisitions to be submitted ahead of the budget.

Last year, the department had spent Rs.145 crore under afforestation activities. Apart from plantations drive, the department is also raising nurseries in different areas to ensure supply of saplings to different departments under the Haritha Haram programme. The department aims to plant 20 crore saplings this under the programme.