LOSING GREENERY: A view of the Western Ghats. In December 2002, the Government said 98,978 hectares of forest land has been encroached upon.

BANGALORE : Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Wednesday gave the Forest Department three months to prepare a detailed report on the status of encroachments in forests in Chikmagalur, Hassan, Kodagu, Uttara Kannada, Dakshina Kannada and Shimoga districts.

A committee comprising officials from the departments of Forests, Revenue, Panchayati Raj and Public Works will be set up to compile the report.

At a meeting of elected representatives from Uttara Kannada and other districts to discuss various pending issues, Mr. Kumaraswamy took the Forest Department officials to task for being insensitive to forest-dwellers' problems and emphasising more on implementing anti-people forest laws, ostensibly to comply with Supreme Court directives on evicting people who have encroached upon forest lands after the cut-off date of 1978 in violation of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980.

"I have been one of the most liberal Chief Ministers, never interfering in officials' daily work. Instead of showing results, all you seem to have done is ensure that the forest dwellers, who have been living there for centuries, are constantly harassed," he said.

Legislators from these districts had told him that tribal and non-tribal people were not able to access housing loans from the Rajiv Gandhi Rural Housing Corporation or other housing schemes. During the monsoon, alternative arrangements were not made for housing nor were measures taken to ensure that their huts were not washed away, he said.

Mr. Kumaraswamy said the officials went on a spree of retrieving encroached forest land forgetting that these "encroachers" had at one time been the protectors of the forests, long before the Forest Department had been created.

"In fact, I think we have lost more forests and wildlife after they came under your protection," he said.

Instead of going after timber smugglers and illegal mining, the officials were targeting these poor dwellers who could not afford one square meal a day or have tiny holdings of a few guntas or an acre, Mr. Kumaraswamy said.

Following the Supreme Court directive, the Centre issued a circular in May 2002, to "summarily evict all illegal encroachment of forest lands in various States and Union Territories before September 30, 2002". Most States, including Karnataka, had argued that this order sidestepped the 1990 framework for resolution of disputes related to forest land between tribal people and the State.

In December 2002, the Karnataka Government said that since April 1978, 98,978 hectares of forest land had been encroached upon by 112,554 families. The extent of encroachments in "revenue/protected forests" (forests on government land that are not under the control of the Forest Department) is yet to be accurately assessed.

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