The condition of affairs in the forest department can be briefly
summarized as follows for the year 1909.
Total area under government control: 241,774 square miles, namely,
Reserved, 94,561; Protected, 8,835; Unclassed, 138,378.
Officials (in 1905): Higher grades, 312; Lower grades, 1,663; Guards,
8,533. The controlling staff was in 1909 increased by 34; and numbers in
all other grades increased.
Rounded off Expenditures, $4,500,000; Revenues, $8,225,000; Net
Proceeds, $3,675,000 (45% of gross). Variation in the value of the rupee
makes comparison with earlier years uncertain.
In spite of the many difficulties, a poor market (no market at all for a
large number of woods), wild, unsurveyed, and practically unknown
woodlands, requiring unusual and costly methods of organization and
protection, the forestry department has succeeded, without curtailing
the timber output of India, in so regulating forest exploitation as to
insure not only a permanence in the output, but also to improve the
woodlands by favoring the valuable species. It has prepared for an
increase of output for the future, and at the same time has yielded the
Government a steadily growing revenue, which bids fair to rank before
long among the important sources of income.
In 1865 the net revenue was only $360,000, it had about doubled by 1875,
and more than trebled by 1885, and since then has more than quadrupled.
While in the period of 1870 to 1874 the expense of the administration
was still 70 per cent. of the gross income, it has gradually been
reduced to near 45 per cent., while the outturn in material has in the
last five years increased by 35% over the preceding quinquennium.
At first, the department and its operations as well as its finances were
Imperial, the local governments having no control over its officers or
over the revenue derived, but, in 1882, decentralization was effected,
the local governments obtaining a direct interest in the revenues. As a
result the financial interest overruled the conservative policy, and
over-cutting was the consequence. In 1884, the general government
recognized the need of a change. After some struggle, the Imperial
department was placed at least in charge of preparing the working plans,
and pressure for their execution if not direct enforcement can be
brought through appeal to the general government by the
Inspector-General, which, however, has never been necessary to use.
The organization of the forest service passed through various stages,
and the arrangement in the different provinces is even now not quite
uniform.
The forest service, then, is peculiarly organized as regards division of
responsibilities and relationships between the imperial and the
provincial governments, the autonomy of the latter being jealously
guarded. It is divided into the Imperial and the Provincial Service, the
former consisting of the higher grade officials entirely recruited from
England, the latter, the executive service, being in administrative
functions independent of the former.
An Inspector-General, directly under the Secretary of Revenue and
Agriculture, (for some time under the Home Department) is the head of
the service, and acts as professional adviser both of the Imperial and
the Provincial Governments. But this head of the service is shorn of
most of executive functions, all administrative matters being reserved
to the provincial authorities.
The Inspector-General has charge only of the forest school
administration, of forest surveys, and of the making of working plans,
which later, after approval by the Provincial government, are in their
execution inspected and critically supervised by him, but without power
to enforce them, or to give direction directly to the Conservators in
charge (at least in Madras and Burma). He also watches over and reports
on the progress of all forestry matters in the empire.
Peculiarities and great variety are also found in other official
relations and in the appointing power, the general and provincial
governments exercising certain rights in this respect.
The Controlling Staff (57 officers in 1869, now about 300) under the
Inspector-General, consists of Conservators, Deputy Conservators and
Assistant Conservators. The Conservators, now some 20, so far as they
are not directly acting as assistants in the Inspector-General’s
office, are the heads of the provincial departments and
conservatorships, and in that capacity directly subordinate to the local
government, which in Madras and Bombay also has their appointment; each
is in charge either of the entire forest business of the Province, or of
a circle forming part of a Province and the administration unit in
India. These are, therefore, the most influential and most responsible
agents in introducing forestry practices. Conservatorships are divided
into divisions, each in charge of a divisional forest officer, a member
of either the Imperial or the Provincial Controlling Staff; but these
have to acknowledge subordination to the Chief Civil officer, the
Collector of the district in which they are located, in order to
harmonize the financial and forestal interests.
About 80 per cent. of the Controlling Staff in the Imperial Service are
appointed by the Secretary of State from graduates formerly from the
forest school at Cooper’s Hill College, now Oxford, the remaining 20 per
cent. from Englishmen in the provincial service, the members of which
have passed through the Dehra Dun forest school and through the lower
branches of the service. In addition to this Superior Staff, a
Subordinate Staff of Extra Deputy Conservators and Extra Assistant
Conservators forms the Provincial Service, which is mainly recruited
from the natives.
The districts are divided into ranges, for which an Executive Service is
organized, of rangers (over 400), who are now selected from graduates of
the forest school in Dehra Dun. Deputy rangers and foresters, a lower
grade (some 1700), and guards, having their separate beats (over 8500),
form the Protective Service, mostly or all recruited from the better
class of natives.