Sharavathi project: special officer to study problems of rehabilitated families

Report to be submitted to government in three months

February 27, 2015 12:00 am | Updated 05:48 am IST - Shivamogga:

Minister for Forests and Environment B. Ramanath Rai, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Kagodu Thimmappa, and Principal Secretary, Department of Forests and Environment, M. Madan Gopal at a meeting in Shivamogga on Thursday.— Photo: VAIDYA

Minister for Forests and Environment B. Ramanath Rai, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Kagodu Thimmappa, and Principal Secretary, Department of Forests and Environment, M. Madan Gopal at a meeting in Shivamogga on Thursday.— Photo: VAIDYA

Minister for Forests and Environment B. Ramanath Rai has said the government will appoint a special officer to study the problems faced by families that were displaced by the Sharavathi hydel power project and rehabilitated on forest land.

A total of 22,698 families were displaced by the project commissioned in 1964 and were rehabilitated on 13,067 acres of forest land.

The Forest Department, though it had granted the land for rehabilitation purpose, in official records, the land still belongs to the department. There was a demand from the rehabilitated families to denotify the land and transfer it to the Revenue Department.

The special officer would be directed to study these problems and submit a report to the government in three months, Mr. Rai said at a press conference here on Thursday.

The denotification of forest land and transfer to the Revenue Department is necessary to confer land ownership rights to the displaced families presently in possession of the land.

In many cases, there was no information regarding the boundary of the forest land, leading to confusion over the jurisdiction and ownership of such land.

A big chunk of the displaced families don’t have records to prove ownership of the land they are cultivating.

The special officer would be asked to study these problems and recommend solutions, Mr. Rai said. Earlier in the day, the Minister held a meeting with the affected families.

Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Kagodu Thimmappa, who chaired the meeting said that many displaced families had constructed houses and were engaged in cultivation of the forest land that was acquired by Karnataka Power Project (KPC) for the Sharavathi project. The KPC officials should be directed to take steps to give the families ownership rights, he said.

Principal Secretary, Department of Forests and Environment M. Madan Gopal, Shikaripur MLA B.Y. Raghavendra, Shivamogga Rural MLA Sharada Pooryanaik, MLC M.B. Bhanuprakash, and Deputy Commissioner V.P. Ikkeri were present.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.