The meeting was held under the chairmanship of Millo Tago, Chief Conservator of Forests, Central Arunachal Circle, Pasighat. The members present took serious note on the Legislative Assembly debate of Assam relating to the illegal transportation of timber from Arunachal to Assam and decided to put a joint effort to prevent such illegal timber smuggling. The meet also resolved to improve the co-ordination and communication at various level of administration with a bottoms-up approach right from the Range level to the Circle level between the two states to contain such illegal activities.
In the meeting serious concern was expressed regarding granting of regular bail to the accused smugglers who are also able to secure anticipatory bail using fake T.P., forged seals and signatures. The DFO, Pasighat has been requested to take up the matter with the competent authority and the DFO, Dhemaji to co-ordinate till the case meets a logical end and the accused is punished as per the law. It has also been decided that joint patrolling will be conducted in the porous Assam-Arunachal border areas and also to establish temporary check gates at such points.
In the meeting various issues relating to man-wild elephant conflict, illegal wild elephant trafficking, crop depredation including illegal transportation of minor minerals were discussed. Officers of both the states have agreed to put all out joint and co-ordinated effort to curb such illegal activities and also to share intelligent inputs with each other. It has also been decided to conduct joint awareness campaigns regularly. It was also resolved that such meeting shall be conducted quarterly on a rotational basis with the next meeting scheduled to be held in September at Tezpur.
The meeting was attended by P. Sivakumar, IFS, Conservator of Forests, Northern Assam Circle, Tezpur along with all the DFOs of the circle bordering Arunachal Pradesh and all the DFOs of Central Arunachal Circle and Western Arunachal Circle bordering Assam.