Sir,

In our country, 70 to 80 percent of the population is dependent on agriculture, living away from towns and cities using agricultural residues and the wood from the adjoining Government forests for cooking.

The Government had permitted the villagers to bring dry, fallen and dead wood on headloads, free of cost for bonafide use only.  The bullock carts could bring firewood paying fixed permit charges.

When there is a shortage of dry wood in the forest, the villagers started girdling the live trees, making them dry and bringing them for use in cooking.

With the increase in population, the forests were depleted and so the Government started supplying LPG cylinders to villagers either free of cost or at the subsidised rates to save the forest ecosystem which once destroyed cannot be recreated or rejuvenated.

Increasing the rate of cylinders like petrol/diesel is not desirable as nearly 60 to 70 percent of the villagers are using cylinders now and to that extent, our forests are saved. Petrol/diesel rates affect only 30 to 40 percent of higher-ups and are tolerable.

So, use LPG cylinders and save the forests.

– Dr. Kodira A. Kushalapa, IFS (Retd.), Mysuru, 7.5.2022

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