Bhubaneswar, Aug. 17: Newly appointed Odisha forest and environment minister Bijayshree Routray today asked the divisional forest officers to revive nearly 300 van surakshya samitis that were lying almost defunct in the state. The samitis play a major role in the protection of forests that lie close to villages.

Routray said that with time, the role of the forest officers had also changed dramatically. “It is their prime responsibility to ensure that sustainable livelihood programmes initiated by the government become successful. Just guarding the forests will not serve the purpose,” he said, while inaugurating a two-day conference for divisional forest officers at the secretariat.

Routray said the department would urge the chief minister to provide powers to forest guards on par with the police force. Once a forest guard was vested with such powers, he could arrest anyone on the spot.

The conference will take up nearly 22 issues for discussion. These include progress of the 2012-13 afforestation programme, the target and physical achievement of each plantation scheme and raising of tall seedlings for urban plantation at permanent nurseries and requirement of seedlings for urban areas.

Involvement of local youths in forest protection squads, anti-poaching squads and fire protection squads under various schemes were also discussed as well as a number of forest cases.

The elephant corridor management plant was discussed as well. Only two days ago, a train in Keonjhar district had run over two elephants.