RTI reveals Delhi forest department faces severe staff shortage
14 Jul, 2013
The reply to an application filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act has revealed that the forest department of Delhi is facing acute shortage of staff, equipment, resources and other necessities.
In its reply to the application, the department of forest has admitted that there are 172 posts lying vacant in its north and west divisions and almost same number of posts are vacant in the south division alone. The reply also shows that no frontline staff is ever available for night duty.
The department has repeatedly sent letters to the government concerning the acute shortage of staff. The department lacks in other equipment and resources too. The west division has five wireless sets, all of them defunct. Similarly, there is shortage of weapons and the uniforms were last issued in 1990s only. Also, the west division, with a sanctioned strength of 315 staff, has no water connection and it has to depend upon a borewell.
Another problem faced by the department is the massive crunch of heavy vehicles. The RTI reply shows that even a senior official of the rank of deputy range officer cannot use a four-wheeler.