As wildfires continue to devour forests in Uttarakhand, the Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up the state government, saying that cloud seeding or “depending on rain god” is not an answer to the problem and the authorities will have to take preventive measures to tackle it .
The Uttarakhand government apprised the apex court bench of Justices BR Gavai and Sandeep Mehta about the steps it took to control the forest fires.
Up to 0.1 per cent of the forest cover in Uttarakhand was affected by such incidents, the court was told.
Since November last year, there have been 398 forest fires in Uttarakhand, and five people were killed, the state government added.
Deputy Advocate General of Uttarakhand Jatinder Kumar Sethi told the court that all the fires were man-made while jokingly invoking a Bollywood song, “There is a popular song, We didn’t start the fire.”
To this, Justice Mehta quickly responded with, “Also one called, What goes around comes around.”
A total of 388 criminal cases have been lodged in connection with the forest fires, Sethi said, adding that 60 people have been named in those.
“People say that 40 per cent of Uttarakhand is on fire, whereas 0.1 per cent of the forest cover was on fire. And all this was man-made. From November until today, we have 398 fires, all man-made,” the counsel said.
“Cloud seeding or depending on the rain god is not the answer. He (the applicant) is right in saying that you have to take preventive measures,” the bench told the state counsel.
To this, the Uttarakhand government shared with the bench an interim status report containing details of the various steps taken by authorities to deal with forest fires.
Sethi said helicopters of the Indian Air Force were also pressed into service to extinguish the fires.
The apex court then asked about the number of human lives lost, to which the counsel said five people were killed due to the forest fires.
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