The Forest Department proposes to acquire nearly 1,700 acres of revenue land in Chamarajanagar district to widen the wildlife corridor for facilitating safe passage of elephants along their migratory path.
Though the proposal was made sometime ago by the Conservator of Forests, the district administration had failed to evince interest by convening a meeting of the farmers to fix the land acquisition price.
H.C. Kantharaj, Director, Bandipur Tiger Reserve, told The Hindu that a meeting of the officials has been convened to take a decision on the issue. There are many farmers in the region abutting Yelchetti and Chikka Yelchetti villages who have come forward to sell their land to the Forest Department. Though some of them are agricultural land, they have not been tended to for several years. With the permission of the district administration and the Revenue Department, land can be acquired, said Mr. Kantharaj.
The registration value per acre is reckoned to be around Rs. 2 lakh at present and the government will incur Rs. 34 crore in sealing the deal. But it is not one large swathe of 1,700 acres that the authorities are eyeing at but different chunks of land ranging from 150 acres to 200 acres along the Kaniyanapura –Moyar Elephant Corridor. Mr. Kantharaj said the purpose is to widen corridor that is narrow along certain stretches.
However, a senior wildlife conservationists pointed out that the portion of the land – especially near Yelchetti and Chikka Yelchetti – are reckoned to be important as they connect to the actual corridor. But the rest will only add to the buffer and will not help widen or link the Kaniyanapura-Moyar corridor.
The Kaniyanapura-Moyar stretch has been identified as a priority 1 corridor by the report submitted by the task force on elephants. This is based on the high ecological importance of the corridor for the movement of elephants from Bandipur to Mudumalai and back. The other important corridors include the Edayarahalli-Doddasampige corridor, Chamarajanagar-Talamalai-Muddahalli corridor and Karadikkal-Madeshwar corridor as per the report. A wildlife NGO procured nearly 25 acres of land from farmers and handed it over to the State government to secure the Edayarahalli-Doddasampige corridor some years ago and the authorities are contemplating if a similar arrangement can be worked out in this case as well.
