Shobha Karandlaje, Udupi-Chikmagalur MP, said on Sunday that there was no move on the part of the Union government to create a tiger reserve in the Kudremukh National Park.
Addressing presspersons here, Ms. Karandlaje said that people in some villages near the Western Ghats in Karkala taluk were frightened about the tiger reserve. Though the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government had sought a report on creating a tiger reserve, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government had not initiated any such move. It would be better if such a tiger reserve was created in the Nagarhole National Park. Some families were living inside the forests in the Western Ghats in this region. It was not possible to evict them. Some political parties were misleading the people for mileage, she said. Ms. Karandlaje said that the NDA government would do all it could to convince the Supreme Court not to ban arecanut. A large number of farmers in the State, including those in the districts of Udupi, Dakshina Kannada, Shimoga, Chikmagalur, were dependent on arecanut. There was a fear that the Supreme Court might ban the use of arecanut on grounds of health. “But we will do all we can to convince the court of the need not to ban it,” she said. The Union government wanted to construct a modern fisheries harbour at Hungurcutta village in Udupi district. A Central team of experts had visited the village and completed a survey work.
Efforts would be made to expedite the work on the third stage of the Malpe Fisheries Harbour.
CRZ normsThe Union government had agreed to look into a demand for considering Karnataka’s case in applying Coastal Regulation Zone norms on par with Kerala and Goa, she said.
