DEHRADUN: The concept of van panchayat- legally demarcated village forests which are managed and its natural resources shared by village communities introduced in 1921, prevailing only in Uttarakhand in India- has been weakened to drastic level.The state forest dept and revenue dept pass buck on each other on owing their responsibility in holding election of van panchayat bodies after every five years. Not only this, per amendment in Van Panchayat Act in 2012, 50% reservation were given to women to become sarpanch of van Panchayat. But the reality is that out of total 12,167, there are only hundred women sarpanches of van Panchayat at present. The fund for van panchayat has been reduced over the years.Rajender Mahajan, head of forest force who also headed van panchayat in state forest department told TOI, "The forest department has been reduced to mere technical advisor and somewhat fund allocation agency with no authority in their hands. Owing to the fact, that the forests of van panchayat are situated on revenue land, so it is revenue department which is keeping all the data related to their formation, election, reservation , progress and problems."When TOI contacted revenue secretary Harbans Singh Chugh, he washed his hands off saying, "It is the forest department who is controlling and monitoring authority van panchayat. I as revenue secretary never came across any matter related to van panchayat." In nutshell, van panchayat has no authority to take care of it.Fund which is disbursed to van panchayat for afforestation and other activities by forest dept has been reduced to Rs 4.26 crore in 2016-17 from Rs 11 crore in 2015-16 and Rs 15.61 crore in 2014 -15.Former nodal official of van panchayat, BK Gangte emphasised on the need of appointing couple of senior official of the rank of additional principal chief conservator of forests in Van panchayat to strengthen the monitoring at official level.State president of Van Panchayat Vikas Sangthan, NS Tomar said, "Van panchayat were allocated Rs 11 crore by the state government after 2013 disaster which were never given to them. These bodies should be given works related to dousing forest fire and plantation on road pavement. "Assuring release of held up fund of Rs 11 crore and works demanded by Tomar, forest minister Harak Singh Rawat acknowledged the massive shortcomings and talked about new regulations saying, "The forest department should be handed over all the authority related to van panchayat to end the confusion. In order to plug the loopholes, the forest department will frame a new regulations in this regard whereby, the van panchayat which has been reserved for women will get recognition only if they have women sarpanch."He said, the van panchayat will be given additional land of 4.76 lakh hectare. "Under the government order of year 2007, where 20% portion of MNREGA fund was to allocated to van panchayat remains ineffective. It would be strictly implemented. Those van panchayat which are in possession of 25 acre will be given Rs two lakh each year and, Rs two crore separately for nurseries handled by women," Rawat said.

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