The National Committee for the Protection of Natural Resources (NCPNR) has condemned the State Board of Wildlife (SBW) for empowering the Chief Minister to take the final call on declaring the Kappatagudda as a conservation reserve.
Speaking to the presspersons here on Tuesday, NCPNR founder-president S.R. Hiremath said the decision was “totally uncalled for” and has raised doubts about the government’s commitment on this issue. The SBW meets only once a year and there was no legal or technical hurdle to settling the issue. But the SBW’s deferring of the decision was undemocratic, he said.
Mr. Hiremath said that the CM should honour the people’s sentiments in the issue and that the government should not backtrack from its own promise to protesters at Dambal in Gadag district on February 15. The Gadag district in-charge Minister, H. K. Patil, had then promised to protect the forest and deny permission for any form of mining. Even Forest Minister B. Ramanath Rai had said on the floor of the House that no mining activity would be allowed at Kappatagudda.
Taking all this into consideration, the government should withdraw its “retrograde notification” dated November 4, 2016, Mr. Hiremath said.
