Karnataka forest department seeks custody of deemed forests notified by government

The letter accessed by the indianexpress.com stated that Singh requested the additional chief secretary to direct the revenue department to hand over the notified forests to the jurisdictional range forest officer. “[In] the survey numbers where a part of it is declared as deemed forest, a joint survey by the revenue and forest departments should be conducted and boundary fixed and demarcated on the ground. Surveys and demarcation of all other deemed forests which are not surveyed and demarcated on ground should be taken up in a phased manner,” Singh wrote.

He also requested that the deemed forest land should be mutated in favour of the forest department. “The areas notified as deemed forests should be declared as ‘lands assigned for special purposes by the deputy commissioners’ under Section 71 of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act 1964. The deemed forest lands should be mutated in favour of the forest department and the entry should be made in column 9 of the RTC (records of rights, tenancy and crops) to that effect. The process of notifying the deemed forest areas as reserved forests/protected forests under the relevant sections of Karnataka Forest Act 1963 should be initiated,” the letter read.

Since there have been complaints that the revenue department is illegally granting the deemed forest land to private parties, Singh specified that the land notified as deemed forests should not be used for any other purpose.