Alleging that Aniketana Estate, of which retired IAS officer I.M. Vittalamurthy is a partner, has encroached upon the forestland at Malasapura in Belur taluk, the Forest Department has begun the eviction process. The Forest officials might clear the coffee plantation that spreads across 19 acres and 20 guntas of forestland.
The department had issued a preliminary notice to Mr. Vittalamurthy on December 2, 2014 asking him to vacate the land within a week. Mr. Vittalmurthy responded to the notice through an advocate. Ganesh S. Bhat, Deputy Conservator of Forests, told The Hindu on Friday that during the survey conducted by the Forest Department it was found that the estate had encroached upon the land in survey number 194 of Malasavara village, which had been declared as reserved forest in 1940.
“In response to the notice, the estate owners claimed that they had purchased the estate from Gopala Gowda in 2011 and that they have the documents to prove their ownership. However, the documents provided by them are not sufficient to prove their claim,” he said. The Aniketana trust owns 15 acres of land in the adjacent survey number 232 and it had encroached upon the forestland.
Like Mr. Vittalamurthy, another six to seven people had encroached upon the forestland in the same village. The department had issued notices to all of them. “The final eviction notice has been issued to the estate owners as per Section 64A of the Karnataka Forest Act. We will reclaim the forestland soon,” said Ravindra Kumar, Assistant Conservator of Forests (Hassan sub-division).
The total quantity of forestland encroached in Hassan district measures about 1,500 acres.
A majority of the encroachment had been reported in Arkalgud, Belur and Arsikere taluks. Mr. Ganesh Bhat said, the department had issued notices to over 250 people in this connection. So far, nearly 170 acres of forestland had been recovered. “Of the 1,500 acres encroached land, about 750 acres have been granted to many people in the past several years. We are not trying to recover the land granted. We are dealing with the rest of the encroached land,” he said.
