Guwahati, Dec. 25: The Assam Forest Service (Class I officers) Association has urged the Centre and the state to provide adequate promotion scope to state forest service officers.

At present, 67 per cent of posts in Assam forest department are reserved for Indian Forest Service (IFS) direct recruits while the rest are for state forest service officers promoted to IFS cadre.

The forest officers? association, during its biennial general body meeting held yesterday, requested the commissioner and secretary forest department to redress the grievances of the state forest service officers, who are not getting enough scope for promotion. The association has also written to the National Forest Commission and apprised it on the issue.

?We demand that no more IFS direct recruits be appointed in the state to help secure promotion facilities for state forest service officers,? general secretary of the association Narayan Mahanta said.

Mahanta said the association has demanded that the promotion quota for the state forest service to be raised to 70 per cent while the remaining 30 per cent can be reserved for IFS officers.

?Many of the state forest service officers would not get a chance for promotion unless the current crop of IFS officers retire,? he added.

He pointed out that Jammu and Kashmir government has made a new rule of 50 per cent posts for IFS direct recruits and an equal percentage for state forest service officers.

At the time of entry, both the IFS and the state forest service recruit join as assistant conservator of forests.

While the Union Public Service Commission recruits IFS officers, the state forest service officers are recruited by the Assam Public Service Commission.

At present, a state forest service officer has to wait for eight years to become eligible for nomination to the IFS while a direct IFS officer is eligible for senior scale within four years.

An official pointed out that after 20 years of service a state forest service officer should be able to become a conservator but it is not happening because of the dominance of IFS officers.

?The way things are, there would be no principal chief conservator of forests from Assam after 2009,? an official said.