New Delhi, Apr 6 (DHNS): Dismissing the allegations that the Karnataka government was opposing the Kasturirangan committee report on Western Ghats under the pressure from the mining lobby, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Sunday said that his government would not take any decision in a hurry.

“The State government will not take any decision, which harms the ecology of the State. The environmentalists need not worry about it”, he told reporters here.

Siddaramaiah, who was in New Delhi to attend joint conference of chief ministers of states and chief justices of high courts, said his government was not under the pressure from sand mafia or quarrying lobby to oppose the report. Before finalising the state response, the government would keep in mind the suggestions made by environmentalists, he said.

The Kasturirangan Panel had recommended a ban on development activities in 60,000 sq km ecologically-sensitive area spread over six states of Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

The report declared 1,580 villages in and around Western Ghats in Karnataka as ecologically sensitive areas, but the State Cabinet has decided to include only 850 villages by dropping rest.

Environmentalists have alleged that the government was dropping a number of villages under the pressure from the mining lobby. Instead of explaining about the benefits of the report, the State government was planning to drop many villages from the category of sensitive areas they alleged.

On setting up IIT in Karnataka, Siddaramaiah said that soon the State government would recommend some of the possible places to the Ministry of Human Resources Development and set up the institute in consultation with the Centre.

Cabinet reshuffle soon: Siddaramaiah

Aiming to bring new vigour to his government, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Sunday said he will reshuffle his Cabinet soon.

Siddaramaiah, who was in New Delhi to attend a joint conference of chief ministers and chief justices of high courts, told reporters that he would meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday and discuss about his plan. He said he may drop some ministers and induct new faces.

Claiming that all the ministers were working efficiently, he said that he was yet to finalise the names of ministers to be dropped or inducted.

Siddaramaiah is also learnt to have been doing performance exercise of each minister. The Chief Minister’s Office has started collecting information about the ministers with the help of department heads and district in-charge secretaries, mainly about the number of review meetings held by each minister, implementation of budgetary programmes and schemes and file clearance, sources said.

The chief minister is likely to submit the report to the high command about the ministers’ performance during his next Delhi visit.

He said that the CID would soon complete the probe in connection with sexual assault charges against Raghaveshwara Bharti Swamiji and file a chargesheet.

Dismissing the allegations that the CID was deliberately delaying the probe, he said that the government was not interfering in the probe.