The Valmiki Tiger Reserve. Telegraph picture

Patna, March 18: The government is playing with fire when it comes to the Valmiki Tiger Reserve.

The state forest department has failed to provide any fund for making fire lines.

Under the fire line plan, a portion of land in the forest is cleared of anything inflammable so that advancing fire does not get a source of fuel to spread further.

Besides a 20-to-30ft-gap is created between two contiguous forests so that in case one area catches fire, the other remains safe. The demarcated area is cleared and all the plantation and fallen leaves there are removed.

In case of VTR, around 300km-long fire line is created every year to control the spread of wild fire in a given range or from one range to another, said a VTR official.

The negligence on the part of the department appears more glaring when one takes into account the fact that one section of the annual plan of operation, submitted by the VTR officials, talked specifically about earmarking a fund of over Rs 20 lakh for fire prevention measures.

While around Rs 12 lakh was demanded for making fire lines, the remaining fund was meant for payment of salary to fire watchers, said sources.

Based on the annual plan of operation submitted by the state, the national tiger conservation authority (NTCA) approved Rs 1.77 crore for the plan and also released 80 per cent of the fund as first instalment to the state in September last year, said a source.

However, when the department released the fund to the VTR, no money was earmarked for taking preventive steps to check incidents of fire in the reserve, added the source.

Accepting the folly, on part of the department, a senior forest official said the department had planned to allocate fund for fire prevention to VTR from the second instalment of the Central fund.

However, now this seems impossible, as the utilisation certificate of the first instalment received from the Centre has not been submitted, the source said.

With no funds at their disposal, the VTR officials are in a fix said a senior official.

The official said they were worried as absence of fire lines can create havoc in the fire season (February 15 to June 30).

He said, with fire lines in the past, there hardly used to be day in VTR when one or other area did not witnessed incidents of fire. Now with no fire lines in place this year, things are likely to be worse in case of an inferno.

Expressing concern over the prevailing situation, assistant manager of Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) Samir Kumar Sinha, who has been staying in the VTR for the past six years, said: “Uncontrolled forest fire incidents pose a threat to flora and affect the soil structure. This, in the long run, may lead to complete change of flora in VTR and also adversely affect the herbivores, which are the prey base of tigers.”

Sinha’s concern is understandable as the Madanpur range of VTR has vast tracts of grasslands and has already witnessed over half a dozen fire incidents this year.