The post of Director Forest Education was created in the
year 1953 to assist the President, Forest Research Institute and college with
it rested the responsibility for professional and technical training/education
in the country. Subsequent to reorganization of Forest Research Institute and
Colleges and creation of Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education
(ICFRE) as an autonomous organization, under the ministry of Environment and
Forests in the year 1991, the Directorate of Forest Education was dilinked from
the Forest Research Institute and Colleges. Since then it is functioning
directly under the Ministry of Environment and Forests.
In order to meet the increasing demand of the State Forest
Departments and Central forestry organization for trained Officers, three State
Forest Service Colleges were established by the Central Government at Burhihat
(Assam) in 1976, Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu) in 1980 and Dehradun (Uttar Pradesh
now Uttarakhand) in 1981 for imparting training to the State Forest Service
Officers of two years duration.
The Forest Rangers Training in India is over 100 years old.
It was imparted up to 1978 centrally through the following Rangers Colleges:
Northern Forest Rangers College, Dehradun (Uttaranchal).
Southern Forest Rangers College, Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu).
Eastern Forest Rangers College, Kurseong (West Bengal).
Central Forest Rangers College, Chandrapur (Maharashtra).
Forest Rangers College, Balaghat (Madhya Pradesh).
These Colleges were being managed by the Government of India
and had a training programme of two years. Need for more trained manpower was
felt in order to meet the increased demand for training Range Forest Officers,
the training of Forest Rangers was De-centralized and six more Rangers Colleges
were opened by some State Governments:
Gujarat Forest Rangers College, Rajpipla (Gujarat).
Forestry Training Institute, Haldwani (Uttaranchal).
Orissa Forest Rangers College, Angul (Orissa).
Forest Rangers College, Jabalpur (Madhya Pradesh).
Forest Rangers College, Chikhalda (Maharashtra).
Northern Eastern forest Rangers College, Jalukbari (Assam)
In the year 1987, the Government of India decided that
responsibility of imparting Rangers Training be given up and the State
Governments should make their own arrangements for such Training. As a
consequence, Rangers Colleges run by the Government of India closed in a phased
manner.
