Equipment procured for wildlife forensic lab: Govt

Tamil Nadu Additional Chief Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Forests Supriya Sahu and Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Chief Wildlife Warden Shekhar Kumar Niraj made this submission before a division bench of Justice V Bharathidasan and Justice N Sathish Kuma, hearing a plea moved by K Pushpavanam who sought direction from the court to the government to establish the wildlife forensic laboratory.

“There is no established forensic laboratory for research and conduct of DNA sequencing of wild animals and now the State government is outsourcing DNA sequencing and other tests to other states,” the petitioner submitted.

The top officials, who appeared via video-conferencing, said the government has procured the required machinery and now the State has to appoint suitable scientific personnel to do all the testing. “Due to the pandemic, the department was not in a position to appoint scientific personnel and now the steps are being taken to make appointments,” the forest department submitted.

On recording the submissions, the judges held that the secretary to the government assured this court that within a short period suitable personnel will be recruited and the laboratory will become fully operational.

Earlier, the State had filed a counter-affidavit informing the court that the government has established an Advanced Institute for Wildlife Conservation at Vandalur, Chennai and the institute was formally inaugurated in 2017 and the institute has started its operations in 2019.

Further, it stated that the lab is in the initial phase of setting up and handling DNA samples up to the level of sequencing and the sequencing part is being outsourced as they don’t have the requisite equipment.

The matter has now been posted to March 4.