Forest land scam: Probe to resume

In May,the state government had ordered the inquiry to find out the extent of the scam,allegedly involving 34,845 hectares of reserved land spread across 219 villages. The elections had delayed the process. “Our officers were on election duty; now we should finish the assessment in a month’s time,” said a senior forest department officer. A special investigation team is scheduled to look into the extent of encroachment on the forest land and to find out the identity of the beneficiaries of the land scam.

The officer said 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 the inquiry to visit Pune to probe 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 land transactions were brought to light after Pune-based NGO Nagrik Chetana Manch had filed a public interest litigation in Supreme Court against the government allotting land to a housing society in Kondhwa. The deputy conservator of forest,Pune,Ashok Khadse,was suspended as one by one irregularities about forest land began surfacing during the hearings. Founder member of the organisation S C N Jathar said the next hearing in Supreme Court was scheduled on November 18.

Meanwhile,the administration claimed it has compiled data of land that has been won back by the forest department from private developers till date. “As per a rough estimate,after taking action against builders and persons,we seem to have got back 22,000 hectares of forest land. This land was either given to a private landowner or a builder for construction,” said a revenue officer. This means now only about 12,000 hectares of forest land need to be accounted for,he said.

The administration admitted there has been a violation of Indian Forest Act,1927,and Indian Forest Conservation Act,1980.