Deemed forest: Ex-minister B Ramanath Rai says govt misleading people

MANGALURU: Former forest minister B Ramanath Rai said that several acres of agricultural land, dwellings and even schools are included in the list of deemed forest land due to lack of proper physical verification.
Rai said on Monday that the central government needs to take steps to exclude such land from the list of deemed forests through the Supreme Court.
“When I was the forest minister, a joint survey by the forest and revenue department was conducted in 2014 to ensure that land of forest dwellers, farmers, and schools are not included in the deemed forest list,” he said.
“A judgment of the Supreme Court is essential to exclude such land from the list of deemed forest. An effort made earlier to exclude non-forest areas from the deemed forest list was rejected by the Supreme Court and it sought more details of the land. Hence, the ministry of environment and forests and climate change should approach the Supreme Court to exclude agricultural land, dwellings, and properties of schools from the deemed forest list,” he said.
To a query on the recent decision of the Karnataka government to declassify over six lakh hectares of deemed forest land, and leave only 3.3 lakh hectares of such land in the state, Rai said it is not possible without a Supreme Court judgment. “No government has the right to exclude land reserved for deemed forest without a Supreme Court judgement. Ministers have been giving statements only for political mileage and misguiding people,” he added.
On the upcoming Assembly election, Rai said the Congress in Dakshina Kannada is fully geared up. “We will win seven out of eight constituencies in Dakshina Kannada. The increase in the number of seat aspirants in the Congress is an indication that the party is all set to win the election,” he said.