India News | U'khand to Set Up 7 Pine Needle Briquette Units Before Next Fire Season
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. The forest department will set up seven new pine needle briquette units in Uttarakhand before the start of the next forest fire season, a forest official said on Thursday.
Dehradun, Jan 2 (PTI) The forest department will set up seven new pine needle briquette units in Uttarakhand before the start of the next forest fire season, a forest official said on Thursday.
Briquettes, a type of bricks, are made by compressing biomass like coal, wood chips, sawdust or paper. The units will be established in Almora, Champawat, Garhwal and Narendra Nagar forest divisions, Additional Chief Conservator of Forests Nishant Verma said.
There already are five such units in the state, he said.
The briquette units will help in preventing forest fires through pine needle (Pirul) collection besides creating employment at the local level, he said.
Fire is a routine phenomenon in pine forests in the state, he said.
About 15.25 per cent of the forest area under the control of the Forest Department is pine forest, he said.
The state will associate with self-help groups to make pallets and briquettes from pine needles, the official said.
He said the forest department pays these groups Rs three per quintal of collected pine. The rate will now be increased, he added.
Last year, the department collected 38,299.48 quintals of pine needles through these groups, who were paid more than Rs 1.13 crore in return, Verma said.
On the instructions of Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, the forest department has also prepared a five-year plan for forest fire prevention and sent it to the central government for approval.
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