District collector to review forest land issue

Conservator of forests,Pune division,B Phatak said the meeting would review the report readied by the forest department and revenue officers. “We have asked the respective taluka officers to submit the reports,” he said. More irregularities are seen in Indapur,Daund and Baramati talukas. A special investigation team will look into the extent of encroachment on the forest land and identify the beneficiaries of the land scam.

Phatak said an officer,a talathi,a forest guard and a surveyor from the revenue department have been appointed for surveying land in each of the 219 villages in the district. A central empowered committee had issued orders for probing the scam. With many leading educational and private institutions already having illegally come up on this land,district officers said all such land would be cleared of encroachment and its forest land status restored. The areas that will be under assessment are Kothrud,Undri,Wadgaon Dhairi,Lohegaon,Wanowrie and Kondhwa in Pune city.

The illegal transactions were brought to light after Pune-based NGO Nagrik Chetana Manch had filed a public interest litigation in the apex court against the government allotting land to a housing society in Kondhwa. Deputy conservator of forest,Pune,Ashok Khadse was suspended as one by one irregularities about forest land began surfacing during the hearings.