Additional CCF Santosh Kumar to serve as acting PCCF
PANAJI
The Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) Subhash Chandra has been relieved of his services and has been transferred to the Ministry of Environment in New Delhi.
Additional Chief Conservator of Forest Santosh Kumar will now serve as acting PCCF.
When contacted, Kumar said Chandra had been relieved as PCCF in the State on Friday afternoon and had left for New Delhi on Saturday.
Kumar said Chandra had served as PCCF in the State for around 2 years and 5 months.
“As PCCF of Goa, Chandra had several achievements and they included Goa’s Biodiversity park at Mollem, 300 water bodies in forest area and ease of business for commercial tree plantation,” said Kumar.
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has appointed Chandra as Chief Executive Officer and Member secretary (CEO & MS) in the national compensatory afforestation fund Management and Planning authority for a period of five years.
Six RFOs transferred
PANAJI: Six Range Forest Officers (RFOs) have been transferred in what is claimed to be “routine transfers” across the State.
Among those transferred included Narayan Prabhudesai, who had been accused in clashes with locals and had even fired in the air to disperse the locals at Bandirwada-Savordem in Sattari Taluka in May.
The transfer order was issued on July 13, but an official in the forest department insisted this was a routine order and had no connection with the clashes between locals and a forest team in Sattari.
“If that was the reason, then only a single officer would have been transferred,” said an official.
The official said Prabhudesai would be now be posted as Range Forest officer at Campal under Deputy Conservator of Forest Wildlife and Eco-tourism Panaji.
Other RFOs who have been transferred beside Prabhudesai are Deepak Tandel to Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary, Shefali Naik to the Margao division and John Fernandes to Pernem division, while Sidhesh Gaude and Geerish Bailudkar have been transferred to the Ponda Division.
