Staff Reporter
CHANGLANG, 22 Apr: While the Changlang district administration has put a complete halt on issuing of new licenses for use of band saws (with 18-inch saw blades) in wood-based small-scale industries (SSI) in the district, there still remains some technical ambiguity regarding the band saws in the SSI units, which the administration needs to address.
On 16 April, the Nampong DFO constituted a board headed by the Jairampur division assistant conservator of forest, which carried out inspection of various wood-based SSI units and mechanised furniture and carpentry units under the Namphai forest division. The board members found all the SSI units abandoned and the machineries dismantled during the inspection, but went on to seal all the units having 18-inch and above band saws, as per the order of the administration.
Later, the board members observed that there was no standard specification for identifying the diameter class of the installed machineries. They stressed on the need for deputing a technical staff for ground verification and certification of the units, in order to do away with the ambiguity in measurement.
The board members were also of the opinion that “a particular line department with necessary operational guidelines should be taking administrative control of the SSI units for better monitoring.”
Elucidating the various issues hampering proper monitoring of these SSI units in the district, an official of the Namphai forest division stated that the district-level licensing committee for wood-based industries approved a total of 31 SSI units, out of which 22 are in Namphai, seven are in Nampong and Jairampur, and the remaining two units are in Diyun.
“Most SSI units in Namphai division had 12, 18 and above 18-inch diameter band saws installed in them. During the inspection, board members chose the band saw wheel as the basis of diameter measurement, which was in fact not the correct method. They did so because there is no standard specification for identifying the diameter class of the installed machineries. There is a lot of ambiguity regarding measurement of the diameter class. In some cases, the band saw wheel, table or blade size of the machinery could also indicate the diameter measurement of the band saw. Therefore, we need urgent formulation of a standard measurable specification.
“We also need to depute a technical staff for ground verification of these units,” the official said, and highlighted the urgent need to engage a line department for administrative control of the SSI units in the district.
“Currently, the district administration and the departments of industries and forest have been tasked with the responsibility of monitoring these units. However, none of them has complete and exact administrative control over these units, which is the main problem hampering proper monitoring of these SSI units,” added the official.
