We now look at the premiere institution for forestry
research in India, the Indian Council for Forestry Research & Education (ICFRE),
set up in 1985 to oversee the research institutes like FRI Dehradun and its centres (which
would be upgraded as institutes of equal status to the FRI), and also forest
research and education in the universities. The intention here is not to
undertake a full-scale review of the ICFRE and its institutes, which will need
a separate paper to cover in detail. However, certain points are being made in
the context of the strengthening of the scientific base, and scientific
competence, of the forest service. These are concerned with (i) the role of
forest officers in research and in the ICFRE, (ii) structure of the ICFRE and its
relation to the ministry; (iii) ways to improve the effectiveness of the ICFRE.
Role of forest officers in the research institutes
As argued previously, the average forest officer can
scarcely be expected to undertake actual scientific studies in the course of a
career, however excellent the academic background and strong the aspiration,
simply because there are a host of other job responsibilities that leave little
time for focused work and years of engagement on one topic. At the most, an
officer can take off a couple of years study leave to undertake a PhD or MSc,
which many officers have availed of. Whether the officer is able to pursue that
particular line of work or study in later life is however uncertain, but many
do keep writing and studying, although within careful limits due to the
unpleasant possibility of getting embroiled in controversy.
One of these controversies is the role of forest officers
in the ICFRE, featured in a rash of reports, such as the one by Khan and Pathak
(2015) in the web-magazine Tehelka.com. This story quotes a note of the audit
team of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India critical of “IFS
officers who presently seemed to have gone astray from their mandated and
primary objectives of protection, conservation of forest and maintaining
ecological environment and unrestrictedly rushing towards research fields” (CAG
note, quoted in the Tehelka.com article, op. cit.). The other objection raised
by the CAG, according to the article, is that there were too many IFS officers
in the ICFRE and its institutes, some 104 as per the report, and that these
officers were holding the posts “without any knowledge and experience of the
initial alphabets in the field of research” (ibid.).
Of course, such sweeping statements are not worth wasting
too much time on, and only betray a lack of understanding of how a professional
cadre is built up, and the supporting roles of research and field functioning.
In the case of forestry, it is essential that there should be this constant
cross-fertilization between cloister and the field, and scientists cannot get
access and support in the field without the personal links of forest officers.
The seeming concentration of forest officers is only at the ICFRE in Dehradun,
at the higher levels of ADG and DDG, and again in the fringe areas of extension
and management, rather than in the core research faculties like botany or genetics.
There are very few forest officers in the constituent institutes, mostly a
Coordinator (Research) and a Coordinator (Facilities), and occasionally in research
divisions dealing with forest management and silviculture.
There is a case, however, for increasing the space for
scientists to rise up to levels of DDG and ADG in the ICFRE, and a reasonable
sharing of these posts can be worked out. However, this does not mean that
well-qualified, competent and experienced forest officers should be kept out:
because of the unrelenting diatribe of our social scientists, an illusion has
been created of the ‘ugly forester’ that is simply not in consonance with the
reality. Because of the all-India competition, members of the IFS tend to be of
fairly high caliber right from the start, and the wide experience gained in the
states does make them capable of getting things done even in field research. Bitter
though this may be to the inveterate critics of the service, forest officers
are essential to keep the institutes relevant to the field needs, and do add
value in most departments because their entire service life has been devoted to
field trials and implementation, extension, and training. Moreover, the cadre
strengths of the IFS in the states have been fixed very much with a deputation
quota to the centre, that obviously includes deputation to the research
institutes.
The bone of contention, perhaps, is the feeling that the forest
service has monopolized the top post, that of the DG ICFRE. There is no bar for
selection of a non-forester even for the DG ICFRE post, provided there are
suitable candidates and the competing forest officers are not clearly better.
There is usually a requirement that the candidate has had a certain length of
working in the forestry sphere, and this may go against senior scientists from
completely disparate fields, however eminent they may be. The post requires
constant interfacing with the forest departments, and awareness of the working
of the department and the issues relevant to it from a management point of view
in order to fulfil its role as a high level advisor to the government, and not
just narrow academics. The individual Institute Director posts have been assigned
in the past to scientists, especially in the more specialized institutes like
the IWST Bangalore (Wood Technology) and the IFGTB Coimbatore (Genetics).
The two-edged sword of autonomy: relations with the ministry
A separate issue is the level of staffing in the
institutes and the financial support afforded by the ministry. Ever since the
institutes were taken out of the government’s fold and put under the umbrella
of the ICFRE, they have tended to be nobody’s baby. The situation is even less
congenial after the post of the DG ICFRE was upgraded to equal the DG Forests
in the ministry, because now the ICFRE was left without an official champion at
the centre (the DGF being now just one among many members in the governing
council), and would have to deal directly with the Secretary, Ministry of
Environment & Forests (MoEF) and the Minister. Being in far-away Dehradun,
the ICFRE has never managed to impose itself on the public’s attention where it
matters: at the national capital; even the functions and conferences it organizes
tend to be in Dehradun or in its regional institutes, and therefore do not
attain visibility to the decision-makers at the centre. Unfortunately, this is
because the ICFRE took over the imposing building of the FRI Dehradun as a
natural corollary of the abolition of the President, FRI and institution of the
post of the DG, ICFRE. The net result, unfortunately, seems to be that the ICFRE
is not considered on par with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)
or other similar national councils, and the FRI Dehradun itself is overshadowed
and its independence taken away.
Ironically, even though it is the ICFRE, being the apex
overseeing body, that is staffed with a number of IFS officers, it is the FRI,
the research institute, that appears to be groaning under the pressure. Therefore,
one single measure to clarify the relations and linkages would be for the ICFRE
to shift from its provincial seat in Dehradun to the national capital.
Unfortunately, this proposal gets bogged down in a search for a large chunk of
land to build a campus to emulate the FRI Dehradun, but actually the Council
needs to be lean and somewhat mean about its own facilities, and could easily
start operating out of premises rented from any central institution in Delhi .
It is the reality of the situation that the relationship
of the ICFRE with the ministry depends very much on the personality and worldly
wisdom of the DG ICFRE, rather than merits of the case or their genuine needs. Interactions
with the ministry tend to revolve around the demands of the ICFRE for autonomy
from control by the ministry. The
ministry therefore ends up feeling that the ICFRE is not its own baby, resulting
in the gradual starving of funds, almost 90% going just for salaries and
maintenance expenses. Unless the budget is at least doubled, there will be little
opportunity for even the existing scientists in the system to develop their
expertise and implement meaningful research projects. On the whole, it appears
that the experiment with making an ‘autonomous’ council has given the worst of
both worlds: no extra support is forthcoming just for becoming a Council, and
the relatively closer access to the ministry through the DG Forests and his
staff is also lost. Every decision of the Council may be suspected as an
exercise in self-aggrandizement by the Council officers, and the ministry looks
on with relative indifference, as the Council is supposed to be independent. The
woes of the employees and the expense of maintaining the campus and buildings
are added burdens.
Just as criticism is leveled at forest officers for allegedly
treating the ICFRE a cozy resting place from stressful postings, so also is
there a suspicion that local candidates from dome loacalities (say, Dehradun
and Uttarakhand due to the location of the FRI and ICFRE there) are
disproportionately represented in the scientists’ cadres, and individuals often
try to get back to Dehradun even when they are recruited against other
institutes. There has to be a special effort to de-localize recruitment
process, by providing one major recruitment every year, with examination centers
at all the states and UTs. To get around individuals putting pressure for
transfer back to their ‘home’ states, recruitment should be done against
specific posts in specific institutes, and a lock-in period of say 10 years
should be stipulated before transfers. This may encourage people from say the
north-east to apply, and serve in the institute at Jorhat, for instance, which
may look like a punishment for the recruit from other regions. Such
considerations are similar to the home-state syndrome in the All-India
Services, but there are also examples of persons who have made a complete
transfer of allegiance to the new state of residence, among scientists as among
service members.
Between subject specialization and broad regional mandate
One of the perennial crises of identity of the ICFRE
institutes has been the swing between regional (local) relevance and subject
specialization. Firstly, these institutes were started as a referral point for
all the problems of the states in the respective regions. Thus, the centre in
Bangalore was actually started by the Mysore government, and in time looked
into not only utilization of local forest products (this was influenced by the
personal interests of the forest officers who founded the institute on their
return from Germany), but also silviculture and management, achieving fame in the
study of sandal (Santalum album).
After the ICFRE took over, came the concept of each institute specializing in
certain subjects, so the Bangalore institute was named the Institute of Wood
Science and Technology (IWST), and the Coimbatore institute (equally hoary in
age and accomplishments), the Institute of Forest Genetics & Tree Breeding
(IFGTB). This resulted in a continuous soul-searching in IWST, whether or not
to continue with the forestry subjects, sandal research, tree propagation
(tissue culture, etc.) and so on. The state forest departments of Karnataka and
Andhra Pradesh definitely expected the Bangalore institute to serve as a
general research support in their activities, for instance by responding
quickly to issues of forest pathology (disease) and entomology (insects), tree
improvement, propagation, agro-forestry, silviculture, and so on, and did not
want to have to turn to the FRI Dehradun or other institutes at every turn.
Similar expectations would be there of the other institutes in the respective
states of their location. In the final eventuality, if the central institute
was unable to fulfil this sort of back-stopping role (just because the ICFRE
had trimmed the mandate discipline-wise to certain specializations) the
concerned states would be prepared to take up the gauntlet: the multi-disciplinary
Kerala FRI (KFRI) at Peechi is a good example.
The logical option would seem to be make each of the ICFRE
institutes multi-disciplinary, so that it could cater to the field forestry
needs of the relevant states and region both in the general disciplines, and in
the specializations developed at each institute due to historical reasons. This
would have some side benefits: it would build up a certain ‘minimum mass’ of
personnel at each institute that would enable larger field projects to be taken
up, and it would make space for the induction of young scientists in all the
branches. However, depending on the past record of achievements and the
interests of the scientists, certain fields could be identified for special
efforts and achievement of excellence: IWST would obviously forge ahead in
forest products research, but could also decide to become the last word in
agro-forestry (ignoring the policy decisions that reserved this subject for the
ICAR), and IFGTB obviously would continue work in genetics, but also have
capability in supporting subjects like botany, farm forestry, and so on. The names of the institutes may have to be
modified to reflect their broader base, but even if that is not done, the
mandates would have to be expanded, never mind possible objections by ICAR, the
agricultural universities, or CAG staff. These issues are explored in depth in
respect of the IWST in a report prepared by the author in 1994, as part of a
course in Research Management at the Centre for Developmental Studies, Swansea
(Dilip Kumar, 1994; available at the author’s academia.edu site https://www.academia.edu/23266648/Strategic_Planning_for_the_Institute_of_Wood_Science_and_Technology_Bangalore).
In the next section, some data is presented and discussed
on the manpower levels in forestry research in India in comparison with China.
This will give a suggestion on why forest research seems to be handicapped, and
one of the fundamental measures that are needed to revitalize it: providing the
minimum mass of manpower.
Critical mass of forestry scientists: India and China
Lastly, it would be as well to compare the sheer size of the ICFRE scientific manpower with that in a comparable country, say China. Some information on the “Number of graduate staff” is available in the FAO-IUFRO Directory of Forest Research Institutions (FAO, 1993), which though old reflects the position at the time the role of universities in forest research was being actively debated in India.
Table 1- CHINA
|
Sl.No.
|
INSTITUTE
|
No.Grad.Staff
|
|
01
|
ACADEMIA SINICA,
|
238
|
|
02
|
|
033
|
|
03
|
|
019
|
|
04
|
|
239
|
|
05
|
|
100
|
|
06
|
|
071
|
|
07
|
CHINESE AC/IDEMY OF
FORESTRY. RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF WOOD INDUSTRY, Wan Shou Shan,
|
167
|
|
08
|
|
090
|
|
09
|
|
598
|
|
10
|
FORESTRY RESEARCH
|
112
|
|
11
|
RESEARCH INSTITUTE
OF FOREST SCIENCE OF
|
126
|
|
12
|
SHANGHAI WOOD
INDUSTRY RESEARCH INSTITUTE (SWIRl),
|
056
|
|
13
|
SICHUAN RESEARCH
INSTITUTE OF FORESTRY,
|
212
|
|
|
TOTAL
|
2061
|
Source: Directory of Forestry Research Organizations, Forestry Paper 109, IUFRO and FAO, 1993
Table 2-INDIA
|
Sl.No.
|
INSTITUTE
|
No.Grad.Staff
|
|
|
01
|
INDIAN COUNCIL OF FORESTRY RESEARCH AND EDUCATION, ARID
FORESTRY RESEARCH INSTITUTE,
|
100
|
|
|
02
|
INDIAN COUNCIL OF FORESTRY RESEARCH AND EDUCATION,
FOREST RESARCH INSTITUTE,
|
100
|
|
|
03
|
INDIAN COUNCIL OF FORESTRY RESEARCH AND EDUCATION,
|
064
|
|
|
04
|
INDIAN COUNCIL OF FORESTRY RESEARCH AND EDUCATION,
|
050
|
|
|
05
|
INDIAN COUNCIL OF FORESTRY RESEARCH AND EDUCATION,
|
060
|
|
|
06
|
INDIAN COUNCIL OF FORESTRY RESEARCH AND EDUCATION,
TROPICAL FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE,
|
50
|
|
|
07
|
INDIAN PLYWOOD INDUSTRIES RESEARCH INSTITUTE ,
|
047
|
|
|
08
|
KERALA FOREST RESEARCH INSTITUTE Peechi , Kerala
|
110
|
|
|
|
TOTAL
|
581
|
Source: Directory of Forestry Research Organizations, Forestry Paper 109, IUFRO and FAO, 1993
Leaving out the university establishments like the Beijing
Forest University in China (which is not cited in the list) and the Y.S. Parmar
University of Horticulture and Forestry in Himachal Pradesh, India (which shows
as many as 417 graduate staff), the state sponsored forest research institutes
numbered 14 in China, with an aggregate of 2061 “graduate staff”, and 8 numbers
in India with a total of 631 “graduate staff” (we have had to supply numbers
for some: TFRI Jabalpur 50, IRMDFR Jorhat 50, FRI Dehradun 150). This indicates
a considerably larger manpower dedicated to forestry research institutes in China ,
which by all reports has taken this sector very seriously.
The above figures obviously include all staff with a degree,
not necessarily at the level of Scientist (equivalent to the IFS officers).
They probably include research assistants and Technical Officers and other such
lower levels; it is difficult to know how each institute has interpreted the
category. More troubling for the Indian forestry research scenario, however, is
the steady attenuation of personnel due to bottlenecks in recruitment, coupled
with economy orders in government which require that posts remaining vacant for
a length of time (over one year) become lapsed posts which cannot be filled up
subsequently without a long and involved procedure in government. This affects
not only the ICFRE but also the government agencies like the Forest Survey of
India (FSI) Dehradun.
Data given in 2010 by the then Director, FRI (pers. comm.) suggest
that the strength of scientists in ICFRE and its institutes together, was only
280 (that of forest officers on deputation was stated to be 90). Some 32 posts
of Scientist were abolished in 2002, 21 posts were abolished in 2003. These
strengths are a fraction of those in the other gargantuan Councils like the
ICAR and CSIR.
Forestry by itself has a low profile in the government (it
is mainly seen as an obstacle to development) and even in the ministry of
environment & forests (and climate change since 2014), where the more
glamorous and attention-catching subjects like climate negotiations,
environment, biodiversity, international conferences and conventions, and so on
tend to occupy most of the time and attention. Because of the thesis developed
by our social environmentalists that it is the strict (and corrupt) forest
regime that has given rise to popular discontent and left-wing extremism, much
of the time efforts are made to clip the spurs of the forest service, for
example through the Forest Rights Act, rather than give it support and
authority.
Since forestry has no place in the prevailing scheme of
priorities, it is very unlikely that the ICFRE will ever gain the prestige and
clout (not to speak of sheer size) of the ICAR; this is one of the unforeseen pitfalls
of the drive for autonomy under the Council (supposed to be patterned after the
ICAR, with a full-fledged Secretary for Research and so on). It appears in
hindsight that it would have been better for the Council to remain a part of
the ministry and focus efforts on improving internal processes, rather than
going after the chimera of autonomy.
This article, as all others on this site, is the
intellectual property of the author, P.J.Dilip Kumar (IFS, Retired). You are
welcome to reproduce it with due acknowledgement. Suggested citation is as
follows:
Dilip Kumar, P.J. 2016. “TITLE”. Forest Matters, Nos. xx-xx (Month & Year). Available at: www.forestmatters.in or www.forestmatters.blogspot.in
References
Dilip Kumar, P. J. 1994. Strategic
Planning for the Institute of Wood Science and Technology, Bangalore.
Report on a Course of Training in Research Management at the Centre for Developmental Studies, Swansea,
Wales, from 10 January to 5 May, 1994. Available at https://www.academia.edu/23266648/Strategic_Planning_for_the_Institute_of_Wood_Science_and_Technology_Bangalore
FAO/IUFRO. 1993. Directory of forestry research organizations.
FAO Forestry paper 109. Rome .
Khan, Jamshed and
Sushant Pathak. 2015. Tehelka Investigation: How Forest
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