Jamshedpur: The growing Maoist menace in Jharkhand's Saranda forest has not only claimed lives of people, it has dealt a big blow to the forest department whose century-old heritage guest house and a unique training centre was burnt down in the past seven years.
The thickly wooded single-stretch forest, which covers
over 850 sq km and is famous for its saal trees, housed the
erstwhile saal forest management centre in the picutresque
Thalokabad area which used to attract trainees from across the
country.
The management centre was one of its kind in the country
where trainees underwent training on saal forest management
till the rise of extremism till over a decade ago, A K Gupta,
the Regional Chief Conservator of Forest (RCCF) said here
today.
The management centre and the century-old Thalokabad
guest house were burnt down in 2002 and the saal forest
training came to a stop.
''It will not be possible to rebuild the guest house
and the forest management centre unless extremism comes to
an end in Saranda,'' said Gupta.
The forest, rich in natural beauty, was favoured by
tourists from inside and outside the country till the Maoists
began to make their inroads from 2000, Gupta said.
The Maoists dealt a blow to tourism by burning down and
blowing up total ten forest guest houses, including the one at
Thalokabad, in the past seven years, he said.
Unwilling to risk their lives, the tourists, who used to
spend days in the forest for a feel of the nature, stopped
coming.
The other guest houses were at Salai, Kumdi, Luiya and
Chotanagra and provided accomodation to the tourists at
nominal rates.
The divisional forest officer (Saranda), Natesh said
''We have only three guest houses left in operation including
one at Manoharpur, set up by Britishers and another at
Baraiburu was built after Independence.
The Kiriburu guest house of the forest department was
built a few years ago, he added.
Bureau Report
First Published: Friday, July 17, 2009, 18:58