The News Craving
Staff Report
A top Forest Service officer has stoked a row by constituting an advisory panel after his own transfer from Jammu and Kashmir Pollution Control Committee.
The officer Brij Mohan Sharma was transferred from the office of Member Secretary Pollution Control Committee on 28 January and shifted as Chief Conservator of Forests Jammu replacing, Ramesh Kumar.
However on January 31, Sharma issued an order to constitute a committee for working out an information bulletin in the department. The committee is a policy panel which will highlight the achievements as well as shortcomings in the infrastructure for pollution control measures in Jammu and Kashmir for funding from central government, said an official.
According to officials the top level advisory panel has scientists from Jammu region only and not from Kashmir and the seniority of the officers has also been overlooked in framing it.
Kumar confirmed the order and said that he assumed the charge on 1 February. ” I was briefed that the other officers formed the part of the panel as some are retiring soon,” he said.
The Pollution Control Committee was earlier known as Pollution Control Board before Jammu and Kashmir was turned into a Union territory on August 5,2019.
However the website shows the Committee as Board only with Sharma as its Member Secretary. But Kumar said that the website was being updated.
Sharma however said that he couldn’t recall the order that was issued by him after his own transfer from Pollution Control Committee.