Organization Structure
The Project will be implemented by the Project Management Unit (PMU), which will be set up exclusively for the Project under the Forest Department. The PMU has complete liberty to reallocate the staff deployment and hiring of experts as and when required. Figure 1 illustrates the organizational structure of the PMU and its relationship with the Forest Department and other related entities for project implementation. The PMU will be guided by the High Powered Steering Committee (HPSC), which will be formed at state level, and supported by the Project Consultant Team to be procured by the Project. In order to secure smooth and timely implementation of the project PMU will be registered under the Society Registration Act (1860).
Currently there are seven society mode Forest Development Agencies (FDAs) are in operation with significantly simplified budget execution decision-making process. Although the FDAs need to obtain budgetary approval from the central government (Ministry of Environment and Forests) which provides the special funds to the FDAs, the authority of day-to-day budget execution decision-making is vested in District Forest Officer (DFO) who is the Chief Executive Officer of the FDA. Compared to FDA's decision-making process, execution of the state budget needs approval of Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) which is four level higher authority than that of the DFO. To take the advantage of FDA's simplified but cautious mode of decision-making PMU's day-to-day budget execution and operational decisions will be made at the Project Director level under the supervision of PCCF.
To facilitate timely and well coordinated filed level decision-making a part of director's execution authority can be vested to the Project Coordinator of District Facilitation Unit (DFU) upon approval of the PMU.