Rajiv Sharma, J.

1. On the oral request of learned counsel for the petitioner, the Ministry of Railways is added as respondent in the array of the parties.

2. The Court has taken a judicial notice of the frequent occurrence of forest fires and devastation caused to the forest wealth, ecology, economy and environment on the basis of news items. This Court had also directed the respondents to file affidavits on various issues on 02.05.2016. The affidavit was filed by the State on 07.05.2016. In the affidavit, filed on behalf of Union of India, it is stated that as per the information received from the Government of Uttarakhand, 922 fires have been reported during the current fire season upto 29.04.2016, effecting 1890.79 hectares of land, causing an estimated damage of Rs.18,01,695. The Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India has constituted a team of experts to undertake a visit to the affected areas to take stock of the situation and to suggest appropriate measures to prevent forest fires in addition to rescue the affected persons and to take other measures to ensure environment safety etc. It is also stated that Forest Survey of India, Dehradun, under the Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, has developed an indigenous methodology to detect forest fires from the fire spots by a Web Fire Mapper under the project named as ‘Forest Fire Monitoring in India’. The Ministry has also issued guidelines to all the States and Union territories for preparation of State Level Crisis Management Plan for the forest fire vide letter dated 29.01.2010. The Government of India provides the financial and technical assistance to the State Governments as per their specific needs and availability of resources. For this purpose, the Central Government has released the funds to the State of Uttarakhand under a Centrally Sponsored Scheme during the last five years which is as follows:-

Financial Year	Fund released (Rs. In Lakhs)
2012-13	342.62
2013-14	299.33
2014-15	332.57
2015-16	356.83

3. The State Government has also filed a detailed affidavit wherein it is stated that as on 05.05.2016, 1798 incidents of forest fire were reported and total 3948.15 hectares of forest area was affected. The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, vide letter dated 16.11.2015, has recognized the following methods of prevention and control of the forest fire:-

a. Construction of watch towers for detection of forest fires.

b. Deployment of fire watchers.

c. Creation and maintenance of fire lines.

d. Involvement of local communities.

e. Beating of fire with bushes and use of water to douse the fire.

f. Use of remote-sensing technology.

4. In this connection, the State Government has taken following proactive steps to manage and control forest fires:

i. Approval of District Fire Management Plan.

ii. Awareness Generation programmes.

iii. Rotational burning/controlled burning of forest floor litter.

iv. Clearing of fire-lines in the forests.

v. Master control room

vi. Watch towers

vii. Crew stations

viii. Wireless communication network

ix. Satellite based information system

x. Efficient fire fighting tools

xi. Detection of fire incidents

xii. Continuation of multimedia campaign

xiii. 40MCRs and 1166 crew stations have been reinforced.

xiv. Number of fire watchers have been increased from 3000 to 6000.

xv. One team of SDRF and three team of NDRF have been deployed.

xvi. 500 employees have been engaged for forest fire fighting.

xvii. Water tankers have been provided.

xviii. Three M.I. helicopters were also deployed.

5. In sequel of the queries raised by this Court in its order dated 02.05.2011, it has been apprised that total 1798 incidents of forest fires have taken place till 05.05.2016. Total 3238 trees of different species have been affected in the fire as per informatio