A plan for the drive is likely to be drawn at the two-day national workshop on ``tribals and forests'' beginning at the Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM) tomorrow. It is being organised by the National Committee for Protection of Natural Resources (NCPNR) and the IIFM under the asupices of the Jana Vikas Andolan (JVA) with the support of the Ekta Parishad (MP) and the Samaj Parivartana Samudaya (SPS), Karnataka.

Several eminent personalities from different fields are scheduled to participate in the workshop and include justice S Awasthy (retiredjudge of the MP High Court and former human rights commission member), professor M K Prasad, a leading activist of Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad and former pro-vice-chancellor of Calicut University), Dr Kailash Malhotra (Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta), R D Sharma (principal chief conservator of forests, MP) among others.

The workshop is being held in the light of Lok Ayukta findings, at the direction of the Supreme Court, following complaints of rampant illegal felling of malik makbuja trees in Bastar.

The Lokayukta on a direction of the apex court had constituted a high-power committee which had found the politician-merchant-bureaucrat nexus responsible for the plunder of the Bastar forests. The final report of the committee has already been submitted to the Supreme Court by the Lokayukta, justice Faizanuddin, with his own noting that the report) is ``well supported by the evidence of witnesses and other documents''.

The three-member committee found no evidence of any organised gang orgroup of persons or mafia involved in the illegal activities. It says that the sale and purchase of lands and felling of trees ``are being done by different persons of different class and category, whosoever got opportunity, for their individual benefit. some families have made it their regular business''.

The report says that the nexus ``between the persons, including persons in politics, and the merchants, with local bureaucrats at all levels is apparent. The role of local officers is a major factor in promoting these activities which make the task of exploitation of forests standing on private lands (malik makbuja land) easy, by granting permission to cut the trees, frequently and liberally''.

The panel comprising retired district and sessions judge R C Sharma (chairman), former secretary to the MP government Prakash Chandra and former chief conservator of forests K K R Naidu was constituted in April last year.

The interim report of the Lokayukta committee had detailed the role of the Netamfamily (Madhya Pradesh minister Shiv Netam's wife and his brother Virendra Netam) in the malik makbuja scandal and the final report brings out how former MP from Bastar Mahendra Karma and BJP MLA Rajaram Todam used their political clout in influencing the bureaucrats to make fast buck illegally.

The report also notes that there was a significant spurt in the malik makbuja cases contributing to the destruction of forests and severe exploitation of tribals during the tenure of Narayan Singh as commissioner of Bastar division.

The Supreme Court has forwarded the 236-page report to the CBI director for making it part of the investigation already going on in the malik makbuja cases.