Mizoram Forest Minister questions Center’s directive on red sanders

State Forest Minister Lalrinmawia Ralte, while talking about the issue at Congress Bhavan last Friday, said the state agrees that the Centre’s directive mentions that states who send back seized logs to Andhra will be reimbursed by the Andhra government, but that it remains unclear who will bear the cost of the seizure operations as well as storage of the seized consignments, which would require additional security as well.

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Expressing indignation that the state is being made to bear these costs, Ralte said, “Andhra is thousands of miles from Mizoram. And it is incredulous that we have to pay for these costs when smugglers pass through several states and they are never detected there. It is amazing that it is only in the end of the smuggling trail within India, at Mizoram which borders Myanmar, that we catch these smugglers.”

Mizoram has witnessed the theft of seized red sanders from various godowns across the state. In 2011, apparent smugglers had received a favourable judgement from a local court, using a copy of the order to brow-beat a watchman and fleeing with almost 2000 logs which were seized earlier. That consignment remains undetected.

More than 250 logs had also gone missing earlier this year from a Customs godown at Zokhawthar, a village at the international border with Myanmar.