Silvester D’Souza
Daijiworld Media Network – Kundapur

Kundapur, Aug 8: “As agriculturists face a lot of problems in the name of deemed forest, necessary steps will be taken to sort out the problems” said forest minister B Ramanath Rai.

He addressed the media at Kundapur zone forest conservator’s office on Wednesday August 7.

A cabinet sub-committee has been formed to look into the issue of deemed forests and other issues related to the department of forests.

He also stated, “Already I have discussed the matter with revenue and forest officials together and in the following days, discussions will also be made with forest, revenue and law departments and necessary steps will be taken”.

Few title lands in some areas also include forest. In this case, necessary steps will be taken to divide it, was been clarified by the minister. As there is also a rule that one hector land in every panchayat limits should be left vacant for the public use, on which decision has to be taken in gram panchayat meetings, was mention by the minister

Commenting on the families who live in forest areas, he said, “That the scheduled caste/scheduled tribes people living there have right to forest and hence title deed is distributed to them."

In Udupi district, so far title deed is distributed to 518 families.

About the proposal for the elephant corridor, the minister commented, “There is saying among the locals, "wherever the elephant goes, there is a path". Hence a question arises among us, will it be useful if we build a separate corridor for elephants?."

When the issue of electricity supply was affected, due to the forest at Mudoor it was then that the minister was brought to the notice about the same. He replied saying, “A meeting was held with both the departments where discussion was held regarding construction of underground electricity connection and the proposal is sent to higher officials."

He also added, “There might be a delay in implementation of the plan as huge money is needed."

The delegates present at the meeting were, additional conservator of forest AK Singh, S Shantappa, forest conservator, Mangalore division, Yogeshwar, ACF Manjunath Shetty
 
About the minister’s visit, neither the district congress president nor the Kundapur block president had any information. On which when minister was asked to comment, “He replied stating that he had come for Laksha Vruksha Andolan programme."

He clarified, “First I visited district congress office usually and then attend other programmes but when I went to the office, president was not there for which I am not responsible."

He also mentioned, “Through student congress, I entered into politics. Since then till date, I have been actively taking part in all the congress activities."

“About my visit, few of the needed people have information which is more than enough. There are various reasons behind it and let us not talk about here”, said minister B Ramanath Rai.