The Hindu : Karnataka / Bijapur News : 100-year-old trees felled to make way for petrol station

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 30, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bijapur

100-year-old trees felled to make way for petrol station

Staff Correspondent

BIJAPUR: Leasing of a plot owned by the Anti-Famine Institution to a private petroleum company and subsequent felling of trees has snowballed into a controversy.

The Anti-Famine Institution, a cooperative society, which was started during 1910s to provide drought relief, owns an acre of land in the heart of the city, near Ambedkar Chowk.

It has handed over a piece of land measuring little over 10,000 square feet to a private company on 30-year lease for an annual rent of Rs. 2 lakhs. The lessee plans to set up petrol station there.

However, directors of the society, including Chandrakant Hiremath, Chandrashekhar Akki, Kanteerav Kullolli, and Murgeppa Alur, have opposed the lease agreement. They suspect an underhand deal in the transaction.

In the Board of Directors' meeting held on Friday, a few members accused the president of the society, Gulappa Shetgar, of showing undue interest in the deed. According to Mr. Hiremath, the general body in its previous meeting on December 29, 2004, passed a resolution authorising the president to sign lease-deed for constructing a shopping complex but not a petrol bunk.

However, the directors were kept in dark about the modified decision.

Since the society is bound by the Cooperative Societies Act, permission from the department concerned is essential for such transactions. But the procedure has not been fulfilled in this case.

If the president wants to go ahead with the lease-deed, it will be challenged in the court, he told The Hindu . However, Mr. Shetgar, who is also a councillor and chairman of the Bijapur Urban Development Authority, denied any underhand deal. Majority of the directors approved the deed, he said.

On the issue of providing local franchise to lessee (petroleum company) by him, he said everything has been done legally and the issue can be contested in the court. The issue of felling a few century-old tamarind trees has also become contentious one.

The task of felling the third and last tamarind tree was completed on Sunday.

The felling of tree has not only infuriated environmentalists, but also the real owner of these trees, Rathilal Nahar, a textile merchant of Bijapur.

During early 1910s, the then collector had acquired the land owned by Mr. Nahar's family to set up the Anti-Famine Institution.

However, the administration, in an order dated 31, 1930, gave the family the right to maintain the tamarind trees.

Mr. Nahar told The Hindu that his family had been harvesting tamarind fruits for many years. His family was shocked with the felling of the trees. He said that his family will go to the court to seek justice.

However, Mr. Shetgar said that the trees were felled only after the Department of Forest granted permission.

He said that he was confident that the Nahar family can be dissuaded from approaching the court.

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100-year-old trees felled to make way for petrol station