The Forest Department in Kushtia is accused of selling about 35,000 tree saplings given free by a tobacco company. The saplings, brought under government management from the company's designated nursery, were supposed to be distributed free, but the department could not account for where a large share of them went.

An investigation found that this year the tobacco company did not give saplings directly to any government office; it supplied them only to non-government organisations and the public. However, the Forest Department obtained an allocation of 50,000 saplings through paperwork in the names of several individuals. The nursery owner says about 35,000 of these were taken from the "Mama-Bhagne Nursery" at Kadamtala in Kaburhat village, Kushtia Sadar upazila.

But the Forest Department could not show any specific list or proof of where the saplings were distributed. Instead, it claims it took only 14,000 saplings from the nursery.

That raises the question: if the nursery owner supplied at least 35,000 saplings and the department accounts for 14,000, what happened to the remaining 21,000 or so?

Nursery owner Amir Hamza said Forest Department staff took at least 35,000 saplings. After a van was stopped while carrying saplings, they did not come back for more, and he says the department is still owed further saplings.

It is alleged that some of the saplings, taken to the Forest Department nursery next to the BIDC bazar only one and a half kilometres from the nursery, were sold from there.

A local trader said vans full of saplings can be seen coming and going from that nursery every day, but there is no way to tell which are government or free saplings and which the department grew itself.

Local people allege that the Forest Department is selling free saplings alongside its own. They also say that while gardens are planted along railway lines and canal banks with free saplings, a large share of the department's own saplings is being sold.

Deputy ranger Abu Bakar Siddique denied the allegations. He said they brought 14,000 saplings from the nursery; some have been distributed and about 13,000 are still in the Forest Department nursery. He claimed they are selling only saplings they grew themselves.

Asked whether the Forest Department can bring in and sell a tobacco company's free saplings in this way, divisional forest officer Md Rezaul Alam said he did not know how many saplings had been brought in or sold, but commented that saplings should not have been taken from that nursery in this way.

There is therefore a large discrepancy between the nursery owner's supply figures and the Forest Department's.

Kushtia Deputy Commissioner Touhid Bin-Hasan said he had immediately ordered the additional deputy commissioner (general) to investigate. If the allegations are found to be true, legal action will be taken, he said.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.