Acharya submitted his resignation to Yubaraj Bhusal, the forest ministry secretary, stating that an "injustice" had been done to him.[break]
"If I had done anything wrong, the forest ministry should have taken departmental action. But I received a letter from the Ministry of General Administration (MoGA), and that is not acceptable to me," he told Republica, adding, "That is why I decided to quit."
On Monday, a high-level committee, headed by Minister for General Administration Rabindra Shrestha and including the chief secretary and the secretaries of MoGA and the Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation, decided to transfer Acharya to the reserve pool on the basis of a report submitted by a high-level investigation committee which had investigated rampant deforestation in Sarlahi district lately. The investigation committee included the chief secretary, the chief of the National Vigilance Centre (NVC), the secretary at the prime minister´s office and the irrigation secretary.
The parliamentary Natural Resources and Means Committee had directed that the investigation be carried out. Acharya came under controversy a few years back after complaints were lodged against him at the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) as well.
NVC officials have said that they repeatedly asked Acharya to monitor and control the felling of trees in the country, especially in the inner Tarai, following complaints that the region is suffering huge damage as a result of the deforestation.
"We repeatedly called him to the NVC in person and asked him to check the ongoing deforestation," Tana Gautam, chief of NVC, said, adding, "But the DG did not take our instructions seriously. He rather said very lightly that such activities are common in the Tarai."
Gautam further said, "When we asked him to furnish a monitoring report on the tree fellings, he sent a wrong report, saying that no such illegal activities are happening in the Tarai."
The high-level investigation committee under the chief secretary had inspected Sarlahi and nearby areas where it found maximum deforestation and hills rendered barren. Earlier, even the NVC had presented an independent study of the Tarai region to the government, in which it said that deforestation was indeed taking place in nine Terai districts even after the government imposed ban on tree felling.
The investigation committee´s report concluded that Acharya failed in his responsibility to mobilize district forest officers to control deforestation, a MoGA source told Republica.
Acharya was in public service for 34 years and was appointed DG in October last year by Forest Minister Deepak Bohara.
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