Working plans

Introduction

Department has a working plan wing headed by Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forest, at Gandhinagar. There are three regional working plan circles at Junagadh, Surat and Vadodara headed by ccf/cf rank officers. Working Plan wing has also developed a state of art G.I.S. and Remote Sensing Center at Vadodara for creating Geo-spatial inventories of forest resources, thematic maps and change detection of forest cover of different divisions required for planing of forest management.

Forestry management in India as well as in Gujarat has passed through various phases. The National Forest Policy of 1988 has recognized the importance of managing our forests on Silvicultural principles commensurate with the Societal and Environmental concerns. It also mentions that no forest be permitted to work without the government approved management plan in a prescribed format. para 4.3.2 of the national forest policy clearly states :

“No forest should be permitted to be worked without the government having approved the management plan, which should be in a prescribed format and in keeping with the national forest policy. The central government should issue necessary guidelines to the state governments in this regard and monitor compliance.”

According to National working plan code, working plan is a tool for scientific forest management. It is very useful for evaluating the status of forest resource of a division, assessing the impact of past management practices and deciding about suitable management interventions for future. periodical up-dating and revision of working plans is essential to keep pace with the trends emerging out of forest–people interface and to address other national and international obligations. the preparation of working plan is a highly technical and time-framed scheduled operation. the preparation of the working plan is based on stock maps which is prepared through ground surveys. Recently, the use of modern tools like remote sensing, G.I.S. & GPS is being done for preparing the forest cover maps of divisions. Every working plan includes the area-specific scientific prescriptions for proper management of forests of a particular forest division. Accordingly, the working circles, felling series, and annual coupe area computations are done for the plan period for implementation of the working plan prescriptions.

Status Of Working Plans in Gujarat State.

Gujarat state is situated along the western coast of the country with a total geographical area of 19145.83 sq km having only 9.8% designated forest lands, divided by the tropic of cancer. The forests of gujarat consist of four major types, namely (1) tropical moist deciduous, (2) tropical dry deciduous, (3) littoral and swamp and (4) northern tropical thorny forests. Most of the forest area is confined mainly in the districts of Valsad, Dangs, Vyara, Rajpipla, Chhotaudepur, Baria, Godhra, Sabarkantha, Banaskantha, Junagadh and Kachchh. Mangrove forests are mainly found in Jamnagar and Kachchh districts.

For forestry management purpose, the forests of the state are divided into 22 territorial forest divisions and 2 forest sub-divisions and these are covered under 17 approved working plans (as shown in the Statement). Total forest area covered under the management of working plans 17,09,294 ha. the area covered under the working plans are less than the actual forest area of the state because rest of the area are covered under management plans of sanctuaries and national parks. all of these working plans have basically been formulated for improving Conservation and Development of Forest Resources of the State. Clear-felling of forest area is not included in any of these plans. much higher emphasis has been given to conservation, people’s involvement for regeneration of forests, increasing the NTFP outputs, Bio-diversity Conservation, medicinal plants, etc. The working plans are supported by different ongoing research projects like forest resource survey, Socio-Economic studies, regeneration studies and specific studies on seeds, seedlings etc.

Sr. no.	Name of working plan	Prepared by	Period Yrs	From - to	No of div .	Name of divisions	Remarks
1	Dangs	Anoop Shukla IFS	15	1997-1998 to 2012-2013	1	Dangs north	Approval letter no(GOI) 12-7/92(FOR)/2135 Dt:25-07-1997 Extension for one year i.e 2013-14 sanctioned vide GOI  letter no:12-7/92 (for)1772 dt:07-11-2012 Extension for further one year i.e 2014-15 sanctioned vide GOI  letter no:12-7/92 (FOR)609 Dt:10-03-2014 Review and Extension proposal of Existing working plan of Dang forest division is approved in State level committee meeting Dated :12-09-2014
					2	Dangs south
2	Vyara	A.K.Verma IFS	20	1999-2000 to 2018-2019	3	Vyara	Approval letter no (GOI) 2-58/99(FOR)/586 Dt:30-03-1999
3	Rajpipla	Dr Jaipal Singh IFS	10	2005-2006 to 2014-2015	4	Narmada	Approval letter no (GOI) 12-4/2002(FOR)/1366, Dt:14-07-2012 FPWPR is approved in State level committee meeting Dated :11-09-2014
					5	Surat
					6	Bharuch sub-division
4	Chhotaudepur	Rakesh Agrawal IFS	10	2003- 04 to 2012-2013	7	Chhotaudepur	Approval letter no (GOI) 12-6/92(FOR)/46, dt:06-01-2004 Extension for one year i.e 2013-14 sanctioned vide goi  letter no:12-6/92 (for)1517 dt:17-09-2012 Extension for further one year i.e 2014-15 sanctioned vide GOI  letter no:12-6/92 (FOR)546 Dt:28-02-2014 Final Draft Working Plan of Chhotaudepur Forest Division is approved in State level committee meeting Dated :12-09-2014.
5	Panchmahals & kheda	S.N. Tyagi IFS	10	2008-2009 to 2017-2018	8	Godhra	Approval letter no (GOI) 12-6/2002(FOR)/78 dt:05-01-2009
					9	Nadiad s.f
6	Gandhinagar	R.D.Kamboj IFS	10	2002-2003 to 2011-2012	10	Gandhinagar	Approval letter no (GOI) 12-1/2002(FOR)3457, Dt:09-10-2002 Extension for one year i.e 2012-13 sanctioned vide GOI letter no:12-1/2002 (FOR)1558 dt:17-09-2012 further 1 year extension (up to 2013-14) (GOI) letter no.12-1/2002(FOR)1609, Dt.4-10-2013
7	Sabarkantha	A.P.Singh IFS	10	2003-2004 to 2012-2013	11	Sabarkantha (north)	Approval letter no (GOI) 12-1/2000(FOR)2617 Dt:25-11-2003 Extension for one year i.e. 2013-14 sanctioned vide (GOI) letter no:12-1/2000 (FOR)/1516 dt:17-09-2012 Extension for further one year i.e 2014-15 sanctioned vide GOI  letter no:12-1/2000 (FOR)/545 Dt:28-02-2014
					12	Sabarkantha (south)
8	Banaskantha	Dr.A.K.Varshney IFS	10	2004-2005 to 2013-2014	13	Banaskantha	Approval letter no (GOI) 12-37/97(FOR)/745 Dt:22-04-2004. Extension for one year i.e 2014-15 sanctioned vide GOI letter no:12-37/97(FOR)/325, Dt:18-02-2014 for Banaskantha Forest Division. FPWPR of Patan Forest Division is approved in State level committee meeting Dated :11-09-2014.
					14	Patan division
9	Junagadh	M.V.Parmar IFS	10	2004-2005 to 2013-2014	15	Junagadh	Approval letter no (GOI) 12-1/2003(FOR)/1554 Dt:12-08-2004 Extension for one year i.e 2014-15 sanctioned vide GOI letter no:12-1/2003(FOR)/267, Dt:12-02-2014 for Junagadh Forest Division. FPWPR  of Porbandar Forest Division is approved in State level committee meeting Dated:11-09-2014.
					16	Porbandar division
10	Bhavnagar	R.D.Kamboj IFS	10	2002-2003 to 2011-2012	17	Bhavnagar	Approval letter no (GOI) 1 2-3/2002(FOR)/2475 Dt:11-10-2002 Extension for one year i.e. 2012-13 sanctioned vide GOI letter no:12-3/2002 (for)1067 dt:03-07-2012 Further 1 year extension(up to 2013-14) GOI letter No.12-3/2002(for) 1610, dt.4-10-2013 Final Draft Working Plan is approved in State level committee meeting Dated :12-09-2014.
					18	Ahmedabad S.F
11	Jamnagar	Dr.Sanjeev Tyagi IFS	10	2012-2013 to2021-2022	19	Jamnagar	Approval letter No.(GOI) 12-1/2006(FOR)1139 Dt:13-07-2012
12	Rajkot	Dr.Sanjeev Tyagi IFS	10	2012-2013 to 2021-2022	20	Rajkot	Approval letter no (GOI) 12-9/2012(FOR)1606 Dt:10-10-2012
13	Surendranagar	R.K.Sugoor IFS	10	2004-2005 to 2013-2014	21	Surendranagar	Approval letter no (GOI) 12-2/2002(FOR)/1551 dt:11-08-2004 Extension for one year i.e 2014-15 sanctioned vide GOI letter no:12-2/2002(FOR)/320, Dt:18-02-2014 for Surendranagar Forest Division. FPWPR is approved in State level committee meeting Dated :11-09-2014.
14	Kutch	D.B.Ande IFS	10	2003-2004 to 2012-2013	22	Kutch East	Approval letter no (GOI) 12-38/97(FOR)/176 Dt:27-01-2004 FPWPR is received. suggested for inclusion of certain points in revised FPWPR. Extension for one year i.e. 2013-14 sanctioned vide (GOI) letter no:12-38/97 (for)1611 dt: 04-10-2013 Extension for further one year i.e 2014-15 sanctioned vide GOI  letter no:12-38/97/ (FOR) / 321, Dt:18-02-2014 FPWPR is approved in State level committee meeting Dated :11-09-2014.
					23	Kutch West
15	Valsad	U.D.Singh IFS	10	2004-2005 to 2013-2014	24	Valsad South	Approval letter no (GOI) 12-2/2000(FOR)/740 Dt:22-04-2004 Extension for one year i.e 2014-15 sanctioned vide GOI  letter no:12-2/2000/ (FOR) / 319, Dt:18-02-2014 FPWPR is approved in State level committee meeting Dated :11-09-2014.
					25	Valsad North
16	Dahod	S.N. Tyagi IFS	10	2008-2009 to 2017-2018	26	Baria	Approval letter no (GOI) 12-7/2008(FOR)/116 Dt:12-01-2009
17	Banni protected forest	S. C. Srivastav IFS	10	2009-2010 to 2019-2020	27	Banni Grassland division	Approval letter no (GOI) 12-8/2009(FOR)/72 Dt:11-01-2010
	Grassland, Kutch