The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has disintegrated Integrated Regional Offices and constituted 11 (eleven) Regional Offices (ROs) with 9 Sub-offices.
These Offices will be constituted as follows:
Sr. No | Headquarter of the Regional Office | States and UTs under jurisdiction of RO and its Sub-office |
1 | Bangalore | Karnataka, Kerala, Goa and Lakshadweep |
2 | Bhopal | Madhya Pradesh |
3 | Bhubaneswar | Orissa |
Sub-office at Kolkata | West Bengal and Sikkim | |
4 | Chennai | Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Andaman & Nicobar Islands |
Sub-office at Hyderabad | Telangan | |
Sub-office at Vijayawada | Andhra Pradesh | |
5 | Chandigarh | Chandigarh, Haryana and Punjab, |
Sub-office at Shimla | Himachal Pradesh | |
Sub-office at Jammu | Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh | |
6 | Dehradun | Uttarakhand |
7 | Lucknow | Uttar Pradesh and Delhi |
8 | Nagpur | Maharashtra |
Sub-office at Raipur | Chhattisgarh | |
9 | Ranchi | Jharkhand |
Sub-office at Patna | Bihar | |
10 | Shillong | Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura |
Sub-office at Guwahati | Assam, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh | |
11 | Gandhinagar | Gujarat, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu |
Sub-office at Jaipur | Rajasthan |
Furthermore, there will no longer be an integration of different offices namely, National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB), Central Zoo Authority (CZA) and Forest Survey of India (FSI) with Regional Offices.
The head of each of the ROs will be called Deputy Director General of Forests (Central), Regional Office, MoEF&CC. All 11 Regional Office (RO) shall work as a regional unit of the MoEF&CC. The Regional Offices shall function as per Forest (Conservation) Rules as applicable. However, monitoring, examination and processing of proposals of diversion of forest lands, site inspection, conducting Fortnightly Review Coordination Meetings (FRCMs), assisting user agencies for facilitating in filing the proposals and solving bottlenecks therein shall be executed by the Sub-office of concerned ROs or as specified by this Ministry from time to time. Scientists posted in Sub-offices of ROs and Regional Offices shall report to the Head of concerned Regional Offices, respectively.