The Forest Department hands over pine forests to the corporation for extracting resin every year. The corporation, in turn, awards contracts to contractors after fixing the yield target between 3.5 and 4 kg per blaze per season. The terms of the contract entail penalisation on failure to meet the target: the contractor has to pay penalty equivalent to the market price of the amount of resin he falls short off.

The fear of penalty drives many contractors to apply an overdose of acid on the cuts made on the tree's main trunk to extract a larger flow of resin, quickly. This brings them additional yield, more money and helps themskip the penalty. But for the pines, the acid induces gradual death as the tree dries up. The harvest operations such as setting the crop, tapping and collection, are carried out primarily by untrained local labourers hired by contractors. Resin and turpentine oil are the main constituents of resin and both are used in manufacturing soap, paper, synthetic rubber, surface coating, flooring and lubricant compounds, paints, varnishes, polish, perfume and insecticides. Some contractors told The Indian Express, that poor quality of acid supplied by the Forest Corporation was responsible for the death of trees.

Convinced that the quality is poor, they resort to excessive use of acid, not bothering about the repurcussions on the trees. Accordin to official figures 44,820 pine trees died in the last three years due to `various reasons' in Solan District and Rajgarh sub division of Sirmour District, but observers say that the number is not less than 60,000. While 6,100 pine trees died in Rajgarh sub-division, 2,724perished in Nalagarh sub-division, 756 in Kunihar and 240 in Solan forest division in 1998. The toll was 2,415 and 10,602 trees respectively, in Kunihar and Nalagarh forest divisions, in 1997. This year the department had allotted 1,10,166 pine trees to the corporation in Solan, Kunihar, Nalagarh and Rajgarh sub-division for resin-tapping.

Sunder Singh, a farmer of Ramshahar area, said nexus between the contractors and department officials led to the use of illegal methods of resin-tapping. However, Divisional Forest Officer Ajay Srivastva, Nalagarh, countered that the damage was being done by unscrupulous contractors who used techinques other than those prescribed by the Forest Research Institute, Dehradun, and the Forest Department.