Karnataka's Forest Minister Eshwar Khandre.
Credit: DH Photo
Bengaluru: Encroachments on 69 acres of forest in the Western Ghats districts was removed on Monday, a day after Forest Minster Eshwar Khandre todl officials to crackdown on unauthorised occupations in the districts of the Ghats region.
Principal Conservator of Forest (Head of Forest Force) Brijesh Kumar Dikshit, head of the new special task force (STF) on encroachments, issued an order in the morning following which eviction work began. In Chikkamagaluru, 17 acre 17 gunta in Magundi, a village in Koppa hobli, 13 acre 38 gunta in Halasuru village and 36 acre in Tanudi.
To a question on the slow process of eviction, Khandre said the state has over 2 lakh acres of forest land under encroachment and the department has to follow the rules in removing them. "We have recovered about 2000 acres after following the procedure. Another 10,000 acres have also been recovered without the need for notice," he said.
The Western Ghats districts have some of the highest extent of the forest under encroachment in Karnataka. At the end of March 2024, Shivamogga led the list with 80,775 acres of encroachments yet to be evicted, followed by Uttara Kannada (28,308 acre), Chikkamagalur (25978 acre) and Kodagu (6287 acre) among others.
The minister said he has instructed officials to work on speedy settlement of the eviction-related cases pending before the courts.