Huge quantity of timber on the premises of divisional forest office in Khagrachhari. Photo: Jasim Majumder

Huge quantity of timber worth around Tk 10 crore has been getting rotten for seven years at the range offices in Chittagong Hill Tracts due to negligence of forest officials and lengthy procedure in inviting tender to sell those.
The forest officials seized the timber planks during the drives on different occasions. With the valuable timber turning into firewood, both the government and the timber merchants are counting huge losses, forest officials said.
Khagrachhari Divisional Forest Office sources said they have recovered about 20,000 cubic feet (cft) timber worth about Tk 2 crore. The seized illegal timber kept at four range offices under Khagrachhari DFO office are getting rotten as tender could not be floated due to legal complications following a writ petition filed with the High Court by timber merchant Md Manirul Islam Bhuiyan, divisional forest office sources said.
Over 80,000 cft of seized timber worth Tk 8 crore are lying under the open sky at six forest range offices of Jamtali, Hazachhara, Merung, Bagaihat and Rangamati Forest Range , under the Conservator of Forest in Rangamati, said the sources.
Sources said the process of putting the seized timber on sale is being delayed due to sealed tender system introduced by the ministry of forest and environment in the early 2003 replacing the open auction system.
The lengthy procedures discourage the timber merchants from participating in the tender when small merchants can hardly participate in the tender or auction due to financial constraint, they said.
In the open auction system, the persons interested can participate and purchase timber according to their needs.
The timber merchants said the government officials want to sell the seized timber at Kalurghat in Chittagong at high prices instead of selling them through tender locally, prompting the local timber merchants to file a writ petition with the High Court in 2003. With the case yet to be disposed of, the seized timber are now getting rotten lying exposed to the sun and the rain for years in Rangamati, they said.
Khagrachhari Kath Babosayee Kalyan Samity sources said the forest officials play hide-and-seek over the seized woods in Chittagong Hill Tracts, causing the timber seized six years ago to lie under open sky.
Abu Tayob, a member of Khagrachhari Kath Babosayee Kalyan Samity, said they went to court for legal step to stop the initiative to sell the seized timber at Kalurghat in Chittagong depriving local merchants.
Timber trader Mohammad Rafiq said a remarkable quantity of the legal timber planks are seized with the illegal ones. The forest officials on many occasions seize legal woods along with illegal ones saying that they would return those after sorting out and illegal ones would be sold through open tenders locally, he said. The merchants had to go to the court as former divisional forest officer (DFO) of Khagrachhari Shah-E-Alam refused to discuss the matter with them, he said.
Mohammad Asadur Rahman, ranger of Naraichhari, told the Daily Star that they seized about 60,000 cubic feet timber worth about Tk 6 crore. “The seized timber are now lying under open sky at Jamtali forest range under Dighinala upazila as we could not call tender due to legal suit,” he said. "The timber would now have to be sold at a very poor price since they have lost their tamper and quality,” he said.
Another forest official on condition of anonymity said they have about 10,000 cft of timber worth about Tk 50 lakh in Merung forest range, over 7,000 cft worth Tk 70 lakh at Hazachhara forest range and about 3,000 cft of timber worth about Tk 30 lakh in Bagaihat forest range.
Khagrachhari DFO Ali Kabir said foresters never seized legal timber and introduced sealed tender system following an instruction from the Ministry of Forest and Environment.
"If higher authority or the ministry concerned gives directive to sell those seized illegal timber through open tender, we would obviously follow the instruction," he said.
“The process of putting the seized timber on sale is being delayed now due the writ petition filed with the High Court,” he said.