Endowment department encroaches ‘forest land’, who’s to blame?
Bengaluru: Is this a case of two wings of the government—the forest and endowment departments—working to encroach on forest land?
It started with the Endowment Department starting construction of a community hall on land that till last week was supposed to be part of the forest. When conservationists and locals alleged that the land was being encroached upon, the forest department came out with 60-year-old records which show the handing over of the forest patch to the PWD.
The site is located near an important waterhole frequented by elephants and other wild animals. Commercial buildings cannot come up next to the forest and the area is high in tiger and elephant population.
The conservationists smelt a rat after seniors in the forest department kept mum about the encroachment despite protests by local shopkeepers and conservationists.
But on Monday some forest officials from MM Hills registered a Forest Offence Case (FOC) against workers digging up the disputed ground. A forest official from MM Hills clarified that the land was handed over to the PWD Department in 1952, after which the same land was given to the temple.
“The local shopkeepers were afraid of losing their small roadside shops if the commercial complex and lodgings are built by the Endowment Department. So they made the Forest Department a party to the agitation and went to court. The records are clear and the land now belongs to temple authorities. Also the location of the building is on the roadside and it will not affect any forest boundary,” said a forest official.
But the locals aren’t convinced. They alleged that the forest department is divided over taking action against temple authorities. They say they are succumbing to the pressure of government and political leaders. “If the land did not belong to them (the forest department) why did they warn the workers not to carry out any work at the site?
In fact Endowment officials have brought pressure on the forest department through the DC not to book any encroachment case. The endowment officials had appointed a local person to sit through the construction activity and shoo away whoever come near the site,” said a wildlife activist.
