Report sought on land to be delisted from purview of deemed forest

This follows complaints that many areas were wrongly classified as deemed forest

Kagodu Thimmappa, Minister for Revenue, has directed Shivamogga district administration to submit a report to the State government by the end of the month, on the extent of land that should be delisted from the purview of deemed forest.

He was speaking at a meeting held in the city on Monday to review the functioning of the Forest and Revenue departments.

Revenue land with features of forest and having more than 50 trees per hectare is classified as deemed forest. In addition to this, unique types of forests including Kaanu, Soppina Betta that have spread over land belonging to Revenue and Forest departments are also classified as deemed forest. Mr. Thimmappa told the meeting that -- in the wake of complaints that many human habitats and land subjected to cultivation and community work were wrongly classified as deemed forest -- the State government has decided to drop such areas from the list of deemed forest.

He directed the tahshildars to provide the list of land survey numbers classified as deemed forest to each gram panchayat.

Following this, meetings should be held at gram panchayat level to elicit the opinion of the elected representatives and the people on bringing new areas under the purview of deemed forest or reduction to be made in the extent of the land already classified as deemed forest.

After the gram panchayat-level meetings, taluk-level meetings should be held to take the opinion of MLAs over the issue.

Based on the decisions at these meetings, the tahshildars should prepare a list of the land that can be delisted from the purview of deemed forest and submit it to the office of Deputy Commissioner. Based on the lists furnished by the tahshildars, the office of Deputy Commissioner should submit a compiled report to the State government on reduction in the extent of deemed forest in the district, he said.

Mohan Kumar, Deputy Conservator of Forest told the meeting that based on the survey conducted in 1997, an area of 1.75 lakh hectare in the district was identified as deemed forest. However, based on a ground-level joint survey conducted by officials of Revenue and Forest departments in 2014, it has been decided to reduce the extent of deemed forest in the district to 60,380 hectare, he said.

M.B. Bhanuprakash, MLC; M. Lokesh, Deputy Commissioner and Additional Deputy Commissioner K. Channabasappa were present in the meeting.