PANAJI: Various government departments are being computerized as a part of e-governance, and the forest department would be soon following the suit.

According to the highly placed source at the Secretariat, related proposal has been invited from the department.

"The proposal would then be placed before the finance department, for evaluating the cost required for the project," the source added.

Computerisation of the department will facilitate in the issuance of licences for felling of trees, forest land conversions, permissions for setting up wood-based industries as well as renewal of such permissions, and so on.

Furthermore, the digitisation aspect would cover forest range maps, forest beat maps, forest maps under Sections 20 and 4 of the Forest Act, government and private forest land, mining area in the forest lands, protected forest area, cadastral survey involving rivers, streams, roads, railway routes and so on, taluka maps, etc.

The project will also take care of the toposheets, reference maps, and database creation as regards boundary-based transport, mines, forest, landmarks, and natural highlights, in addition to geometrical diversity and map scan.

Initially, the computerisation would be undertaken on an experimental basis.