Indian Forest Service - History

History

The modern Indian Forest Service was created in 1966 for protection, conservation, and regeneration of forest resources.

India was one of the first in the world to introduce scientific forest management. In 1864, the British Raj established the Imperial Forest Department. In 1866 Dr. Dietrich Brandis, a German forest officer, was appointed Inspector General of Forests. The Imperial Forestry Service was organized subordinate to the Imperial Forest Department in 1867. The British colonial government also constituted provincial forest services and executive and subordinate services similar to the forest administrative hierarchy used today.

Officers appointed from 1867 to 1885 were trained in Germany and France, and from 1885 to 1905 at Cooper's Hill, London, a noted professional colleges of forestry. From 1905 to 1926, the University of Oxford (Sir William Schlich), University of Cambridge, and University of Edinburgh had undertaken the task of training Imperial Forestry Service officers.

From 1927 to 1932, forest officers were trained at the Imperial Forest Research Institute (FRI) at Dehradun, which had been established in 1906.

The Indian Forest College (IFC) was established in the 1938 at Dehradun, and officers recruited to the Superior Forest Service by the states and provinces were trained there. Forestry, which was managed by the federal government until then, was transferred to the "provincial list" by the Government of India Act 1935, and recruitment to the Imperial Forestry Service was subsequently discontinued.

The modern Indian Forest Service was established in 1966, after independence, under the All India Services Act 1951. The first Inspector General of Forests, Hari Singh, was instrumental in the development of the IFS.

India has an area of 635,400 km2 designated as forests, about 19.32 percent of the country. India's forest policy was created in 1894 and revised in 1952 and again in 1988.