Karnataka Forest Department pointed out that over 6,000 acre forest land in Bengaluru, 617.8 acre in Biligiri Ranganathaswamy Temple (BRT) Wildlife Sanctuary and more than 1,000 acre in Kodagu have been taken on lease by private companies and public sector units but never returned to the department. They also said revenue records of most of these lands are lost. “In Kodagu, over 1,000 acre of land has been taken on lease by private companies for rubber plantations and a private multinational company has acquired 617.8 acre in BRT sanctuary and 6,000 acre in Bengaluru. The government records are lost. Moreover, these private companies will exert political pressure and drag the department to the court where it takes several years to fight. In most of these cases, we have observed that revenue records have been tampered with,” a senior forest official said. Former Indian Forest Service officer Venkatasubbaiah said, “The companies being the lessee of the scheduled lands have to pay rent to the government. Earlier the rent was Rs 2 per acre annually and later in 1997, it was revised to Rs 5,000 per hectare per annum.” He added, “Even this small amount was not paid by the corporate companies. Since the government is very bad at maintaining records, the forest department is clueless about its own lands. Today, several apartments in Bengaluru are built in the reserve forest areas. There are ministers who have built their houses in reserve forest areas. I have written to the Prime Minister that the land scam in Karnataka is bigger than all the scams put together in independent India.” Former Principal chief conservator of forest (head of task force) B K Singh said the Forest Department has to face harrowing challenges to recover land from the corporates. “We conduct surveys to mark the boundaries of the forest land and then the corporates will pull the stunt of not involving them in the survey. The surveys are initiated with a reference point which are mentioned in the government records for example a stone or a pole etc. On numerous occasions it has been found that these reference points are either defaced or their location is changed. Some of the surveys have not been over even after 40 years. Sometimes the officials from the revenue department tamper the records so it further delays the prospect of recovering land,” he explained. Recently, the Revenue Department wrote to the Forest Department to take possession of 942 acre of land developed by Tata Company as tea estates in Kodagu. The tea estates are spread across Poradu, West Nammale, T Shettigeri and Hysodluru villages in the South Kodagu. Tata Coffee’s petition to get the description of the land reversed to the redeemed sagu (cultivable land) from the reserve forest was dismissed earlier this month by civil judge Lokesha M G at Virajpet. The company argued that the estate was shown as redeemed sagu from 1914-2008 in RTC (records of rights, tenancy and crops) and hence the changes made in the records were improper and without any legal basis. It also challenged limiting the lease period from 999 years to 99 years. The court told the petitioner that it could approach a revenue court to question the changes made in its records. The land was leased to Tata Coffee Limited Company for a period of 99 years and with its completion, the land was to be transferred to the Forest Department for its development into a reserved forest area. The court has also dismissed the petition of Glenloren plantations on the same ground.
