The Rising People’s Party (RPP) has written to the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Department of Environment, Forests & Climate Change on April 14, 2022 which was made available to the media on Tuesday, calling for immediate shutdown of illegal sawmill located at Akhen village owned by one Mr L. Metha, and asked for booking the person(s) responsible under relevant sections of the law within a period of 11 days.
The RPP in the application, aided by a recorded videographic evidence, claimed that after thorough investigation and physical verification found that the sawmill located at Akhen Village, under Lephori EAC HQ, Meluri, Phek under the ownership Metha, a registered Class- 1 contractor (M/S Rhino Construction and Agency and M/S Nagaland Steel Engineering Works) operating in Lephori EAC Hq area was Illegal under the following conditions:
The sawmill is not set up in an “Industrial Estate” as should be according to the Ministry of Environment,Forests & Climate Change (Survey and Utilization Division) Resolution of 2017 for the States of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim.
Any sawmill must only be set up with prior approval from the State Level Committee and operational in accordance with the license granted or renewed by an Officer authorized by the State Government in this regard (DFO or equivalent).
Mr. L. Metha has bought large tracts of virgin forests in Akhen area contiguous to Burma and has been engaged in felling of trees for the last decade or so.
The party has also accused Metha for engaging in fraudulent withdrawal of funds amounting to tens of crores of rupees without undertaking or completing the road projects in the said area.
“There is a clear connection between the fraudulent withdrawals and his logging operation, and if this operation continues with the Forest Department pretending to sleep, then there’ll be no virgin forest left in Meluri sub-division for which the department will be held criminally culpable,” the RPP application read.
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