Patna, Sept. 7: Officials of the Valmiki Tiger Reserve (VTR) have decided to take up the issue of illegal cane cutting by residents of the area in the reserve with the Gorakhpur district administration in Uttar Pradesh.

Gorakhpur is the main market for smuggled cane bushes.

“We want to hit at the root of this trade and I have directed the divisional forest officer to discuss the issue with administrative officials of Gorakhpur because without their help the trade cannot be checked,” VTR field director Santosh Tiwari told The Telegraph over phone today.

Cane bushes are a very important component of the natural flora of the reserve. Tigers take shelter using their high density. In technical terms, the dense vegetation of canes, which are used by tigers are called cane brakes.

“Damage to the cane vegetation would adversely affect the tiger habitat,” said the field director.

Illegal cutting of cane bushes is rampant in division II of VTR. As locals indulge in the illegal work, the field officials find it difficult to check the activity. According to rules, cutting of cane bushes is completely banned in the reserve area.

Those engaged in this illegal business, first clean the bushes and prepare bundles of cane, which are sold at the Gorakhpur market where these are used as raw material for making cane furniture.

One bundle of cane is sold at around Rs 200 to traders engaged in making cane furniture. More skilled locals use these canes in making items like cane basket, which too, is supplied to the market, where one basket is sold for around Rs 150.

The magnitude of the trade can be assessed from the fact that on Tuesday, VTR officials seized over 800 cane baskets from Valmiki Nagar railway station after they got information about baskets being smuggled to Gorakhpur.

“The security personnel accompanying the forest officials had to fire three rounds to seize the baskets as the people carrying it fired at them,” Tiwari said and added that no one was injured in the incident.

An FIR has been lodged against unknown person, as taking advantage of the crowd at the railway station, the people carrying these bags escaped.

Sharing details about the steps being taken at the local-level to curb cane smuggling, Tiwari said: “As a first step we are going to take help of locals for putting an effective check on illegal cutting of cane bushes. To ensure their participation, all the eco-development committees, which consist of local people, are going to be constituted afresh through elections.”

Elections for the existing committees have not been held for the past several years and the committees have virtually stopped functioning.

Apart from taking the support of locals, the VTR administration has also directed the field officials to intensify patrolling in the areas where cane smugglers are active.

“Any laxity in dealing with people damaging the cane bushes would not be tolerated and field officials have been asked to lodge cases against persons engaged in this illegal work,” Tiwari added.