ii. As a national imperative, the Department gives special emphasison

• fuel wood and fodder development on all degraded and denuded lands in the state in  implementing massive need-based and time bound programme of afforestation and tree  planting;
• encouraging the planting of trees alongside or roads, railway lines, rivers and canals and on other unutilized lands under State/Corporate, institutional or private ownership,
• enhancing forest cover and productivity of  the forests through the application of scientific and technical inputs.

iii. The Department gives special importance on

• rights and concessions, including grazing in relation to the carrying capacity of forests;
• development of Social Forestry outside the Reserved forests for meeting requirements  of community, which cannot be met by the rights and concessions.
• the rights and concessions from forests which should primarily be for the bonafide use of the communities living within and around forest areas, specially the tribals;
• popularization of use of fuel-efficient Chullahs in rural areas as a measure of conservation of fuel wood.

iv. Forest land or land with tree cover have not been treated merely as a resources readily available to be utilized for various projects and programmes, but as a national asset have been safeguarded by the Forest Department for providing sustained benefits to the entire community i.e. through regeneration/compensatory afforestation on process.

v. Having regarded to the symbiotic relationship between the tribal people and forests, as a primary task the department is associating the tribal people closely in the protection, regeneration and development of forests as well as providing gainful employment to people living in and around the forest.

vi. Under new project during the 10th plan period, the Forest Department through the two-tier approach (FDAs) and JFMCs is able to empower the local people to participate in the decision making process, apart from building capabilities at the grass-root level.

4) Citizens' Interaction:

   For formulating objectives and strategies to achieve the overall aim, the need of decentralized activities through citizen's interactions is being emphasized by the Department.

   The objectives of the Department under three major categories (ecological, production and rural development) aims at satisfying wholly or partly some of the basic needs of the forest dwellers/ rural population like small timber, fodder, fuel wood, livelihood, gainful employment and income generation.

   Emphasis on self-employment activities related to forestry create vested interest among villagers for sustained utilization  and management of common property resources. Developing unanimous benefit sharing mechanism and local decision making process through increased participation of landless, small an marginal farmers in the management of forestry resources help in sustainable forest management. This relation between villagers/ community and the Department are governed by the Joint Forest Management process, the Village Forest Rules and other pertinent legal documents related to forest management and product utilization such as micro-plan, MOU, etc.

   The people-centered approach in various afforestation programmes provides a firm and sustainable mechanism for devolution of funds to JMFCs i.e. Vana Samrakshana Samiti. As 'village' has been reckoned as a unit of planning and implementation, all activities (such as micro-planning etc.) under the schemes have been conceptualized at the village level. Thus, organic unity in this structural framework promotes efficiency, effectiveness, accountability through decentralization and devolution of authority and responsibilities both physical and financial. During the preparation of micro-plans, the community identifies the activities to be taken up for creation of community assets which are to be maintained by themselves. To ensure this participation, the Forest Personnel at different levels (Village level, Division level, Range level & State level) devote considerable time on training, motivation, extension activities. All the personnel from top to bottom are motivated and all activities undertaken are viewed in the light of participatory aspect. So planning, training, extension activities follow a fact finding and bottomup approach. It means that the personnel during field visits identify the forestry problems as envisaged from the village point of view through dialogues with citizens/ villagers. They identify demands, perceived use of the forest produce,  the existing pattern of forest use, the preferred trees for planting etc. In this process, it is important that special emphasis is given to collect information, discuss and plan with all sections of the society including poor and women, who seldom are heard in an actual planning and implementing process. The fact that the activities undertaken are for the citizens/ society which produce resource for use of society get support of the Department.