Logs of illegally felled Khair trees recovered in Lakhimpur

North Lakhimpur, Sept 29: The illegal cutting of Khair trees and the smuggling of their logs on the plantation land of the Lakhimpur District Soil Conservation Department at Chawuldhowa have led to the arrest of three people and the recovery of some timber.

A team of the Lakhimpur district forest department from its Pathali Paml Forest Beat conducted a search operation on Thursday afternoon in Dharmapur village under the Chawuldhowa Police Outpost. The forest team recovered 20 logs of Khair tree at the village and detained three persons—Pavitra Chutia, Bap Das and Dilip Das—for their alleged involvement in the tree felling and smuggling.

The forest department operation comes in the wake of widespread public concern over the rampant felling of trees at the soil conservation plantation site located on the left-hand side bank of the Subansiri river in Sonapur, near Chawuldhowaghat in Lakhimpur district.

Timber smugglers have been felling the Khair trees at the Soil Conservation Plantation site in recent times and transporting the logs on boats through the Subansiri River to different destinations. Lakhimpur District Forest Department did not act against it as the land belonged to the Soil Conservation Department.

Notably, the Khair (Senegalia catechu) tree, a deciduous, thorny tree from which Kattha (catechu) is extracted, is used as an ingredient to give paan a red colour and typical flavour.

The market value of Kattha is around Rs. 1200 per kg and is very much in demand across the country. Similarly, the timber of the Khair tree is sold at Rs. 60,000 per cubic meter. There is no processing industry of Khair in Assam, except one in Dhola, Tinsukia. The logs of Khair trees are also smuggled to Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat.

The Khair tree is also an important source of fodder for elephants in the region. It was planted along with several other native species of trees in a bid to secure a major elephant habitat and mitigate conflicts between humans and tuskers in the Rowta Reserve Forest under the Dhansiri Forest Division in the Udalguri district of Assam in August this year.