Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)
Mangaluru, Feb 26: The city corporation had issued title deeds under Vajpayee Awas Yojana, a housing scheme, in respect of house sites to the beneficiaries of the scheme. Now it has come to light that the sites issued are located in the land identified as deemed forest.
City (south) MLA, Vedavyas Kamath, took the officials to task about this lapse, at a meeting of Dakshina Kannada District Development and Coordination Committee held on Monday at Dakshina Kannada zilla panchayat auditorium that was chaired by MP, Nalin Kumar Kateel.
"It was announced that 930 people would be provided with houses by the city corporation. The previous MLA had held a programme at the town hall where house keys were distributed. Now the beneficiaries have been approaching me, saying that the houses allotted to them are not available. This is creating embarrassing situation for me. A thorough verification has revealed that the sites allotted under the scheme are located in deemed forest land. Certain NGOs have approached the court for cutting down the trees," Kamath explained.
He wanted to know how could the sites have been distributed even before acquiring the land. The other question he wanted an answer for was who identified forest land for the implementation of this housing scheme.
Angered by this, MP, Nalin Kumar Kateel, wanted to know who identified forest land for house construction and felt that the officials at fault deserve to be thrashed in public. He also questioned why some other land was not identified after finding this to be forest land. "Will the grant still be available if implementation of the scheme is delayed?. The amount of seven crore rupees sanctioned for the purpose has been kept idle," he criticized.
City corporation commissioner, Mohammed Nazeer, said that this area had been reserved long back for housing scheme. "It appears that trees were grown there later. Now, for cutting them down, approval from a committee headed by deputy chief conservator of forests has to be obtained, and the deputy commissioner too is trying to get this approval," he explained.