Transport of household furniture manufactured and sold by accredited timber dealers registered under Forest Conservation Department islandwide will be relaxed, Environmental and Environmental Resources Minister Patali Champika said.

This facility was in existence in the past and was later cancelled as per instruction from the Attorney General on October 10, 2012. This had caused inconvenience in the transportation of timber and the Ministry was inundated with complaints to relax the regulations.

The Minister had then made several discussions with the dealers and had issued a circular to enable the forest rangers to issue permits to transport these items as from July 31, 2014. This step had greatly reduced the inconvenience faced in the issuance of transport permits.

However, the Minister has further relaxed the regulation by allowing the transportation of all the furniture manufactured using this timber and a gazette notification to this effect will be out shortly.

Source : www.dailynews.lk