VALSAD (South Gujarat), Jan 17: All media eyes have been trained on South Gujarat of late, but few have noticed the systematic rape of Valsad, sometime `forest district' of the State. Smugglers armed with sophisticated transportation and communication facilities are learnt to be robbing the region of the khair (Acacia catechu) tree, used by kattha manufacturing units all over the country, to the tune of wood worth Rs 5 crores each year.Even as the forest department claims to be doing its best to counter the plunder, the State government has written to the Centre, asking it to direct the administration of Daman, Diu and Nagar Haveli to be alert to the entry of smuggled khair from Gujarat to Daman, where a Rs 2-crore kattha manufacturing plant came up an year ago.A principal ingredient of paans and paan masalas, kattha is manufactured from the pure catechu found in the `heart' of the tree; it also finds industrial use as a temperature and friction-controlling agent.Though officials hate to admit the rampant smuggling of the tree, the facts tell their own story. Till five years ago, khair - one of the five protected trees, along with teak, sandal, shisham and mahuda - did not find favour even as fuel wood; now it's either unavailable or costs Rs 250/kg or Rs 2.5 lakhs/10-tonne truck. The coincidence of the boom in the paan masala industry and the scarcity of khair wood can hardly be overlooked.Soil and temperature congeniality make Valsad one of the few areas of the country where the khair tree is probably as common as weeds. The district is estimated to have one crore mature khair trees in either reserved forests or private land.The admission that they're now endangered comes from none other than State Forest Minister Kanjibhai Patel, who says, ``We've already sought deployment of SRP personnel at at least a dozen points in the Valsad-Daman border jungles.'' According to Gujarat Forest Development Corporation chief D P S Verma, they're planning to set up a Rs 10-crore kattha plant at Bansada in Valsad with the sole aim of checking smuggling.Verma's claims that there's been a spate of seizures of khair-laden trucks recently is backed up by sub-district forest officer and head of the mobile unit S M Saiyad, Deputy Conservator of Forests C D Singh and the forest minister. Says Singh, ``At least 100 trucks, worth a total of Rs 5 crores, have been seized in the past couple of months''.That, however, doesn't take away from the fact that khair worth Rs 10 crores is still smuggled to Daman and plants elsewhere through inner jungle routes. Ramesh Negi, in charge of the administration of Daman, Diu and Diu, admits that the Gujarat government's suspicions triggered the first-ever raid on the S R Kattha Factory. While promising a fair probe, he says he'd like to augment the Daman's forest staff. Daman Deputy Conservator of Forests M Suryaprakash, however, refused to talk on the issue.Praveen Kumar, who claimed to be a relative of the Delhi-based owners and is the supervisor of the factory in question, meanwhile, scoffs at the officials' allegations. ``The khair trunks in this unit have been bought legally. I have all the documents necessary to prove this''.Official sources, however, allege that most of the less-then-a-dozen kattha factories keep a `genuine' stock but depend mainly on smuggled khair wood. ``Valsad khair makes its way right up to Delhi and Sonepat, where most of the factories are'', they say.
