KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
J&K government on Thursday admitted that the state’s fully owned State Forest Corporation has been incurring massive losses in last two years in its Jammu operations. The cumulative losses in two years have crossed Rs 51 crore in last two financial years. The losses are apparently being met from its earnings from Srinagar to keep the corporation afloat, the government said.
Revealing details in a stared question, the forest ministry on Thursday said that SFC had a total revenue of Rs 42.68 crore in its kitty in 2014-15 in Jammu region. Against this the overall expenditure was at Rs 66.49 crore thus registering a deficit of Rs 23.81 crore.
In 2015-16, it was almost the same situation. Against an overall revenue availability of Rs 46.84 crore, the corporation booked an expenditure of Rs 75.05 crore. This led to a deficit of Rs 28.21 crore.
The government said that the corporation transferred funds from its “Srinagar account” to the extent of Rs 24.80 crore 2014-15 and Rs 27.25 crore in 2015-16 to manage the deficit of the corporation.
Explaining the situation, the government said that the restrictions imposed by the supreme court has reduced the timber extract from forests as it is limited to fallen, diseased and dry. Given the bulky size of the corporation, the government said that its low earnings are a major crisis as it is unable to feed its staff. Only way out, Abdul Haq Khan, speaking for the Forest Minister said, is to shift the excess staff in the SFC to the forest department so that their services could be utilized for other pressing issues like conservation of forests and fighting forest fires.
Besides, the government said that another option that is being considered for SFC revival is to get it into open market. There are many business firms importing timber, why should not SFC also do it, Khan said.
