Nagpur: With the delay in a tendu leaf auction in the territory of non-schedule and non-community forest rights (CFR) for the 2022 season, the state government tends to suffer very large income loss.
Last year, a tendu auction began on January 2, and the first round had taken RS38 Crore from sales of 144 units of a total of 277 registered.
APCCF (protection) Pravin Chavan, holding additional costs of APCCF (non-wood forest products), admit, “This year the auction process has been postponed a month.
We have issued a tender and the first round will be held on February 1″ However, in neighboring countries Madhya Pradesh, the first round was over and in Chhattisgarh, two auction rounds had been held.
In the state, a large enough tendu unit has been sold.
However, the process has not started in Maharashtra.
Tender notifications in Maharashtra are published on January 20, 2008, while in the past five years, tender notices are always published in the first week of December, and tenders opened in the last week of December or in the first week of January and by.
At the end of January almost three sales turns used to be completed.
Forest officials connect the delay to the non-availability of regular APCCF for more than 6 months.
POS is maintained at an additional cost.
Because the tender process is delayed, there is a possibility that several units of tendu in Maharashtra can remain unsold.
“This will lead to the theft of leaf tendu by the contractor, which hold hands with officials concerned,” they said.
Not only the auction process is postponed, but the distribution of bonuses to collectors is tend for the 2021 season too.
This is a good source of income for poor villagers, especially in the Gadchiroli and Chandrapur tribe belt.
The source said the number of bonuses expected for the Tendu season 2021 was around RS25-30 Crore.
This number will be distributed to the 1.85 lakh family.
Chavan said, “I do not know the status of bonus tendu.
We must check and submit proposals to the state government.”