NILGIRIS: Nilgiris forest officials on Thursday arrested the manager of a private estate, which allegedly belongs to the son-in-law of a state minister, on charges of trying to widen the road inside a reserve forest in Kotagiri.
The management of Medanad estate in Kil Kotagiri used earth movers to widen the road inside the reserve forest to create smooth access to the estate. Based on information from environmentalists, forest officials visited the spot and filed a case under sections of Tamil Nadu Forest Act, 1882 and the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 against the manager Balamurugan and two drivers, Umar Farooq and Pankaj Kumar Singh. The vehicles were seized.
Forest officials said, the estate authorities have the right of passage for 4 km in the woods, in which the department has laid a bitumen road for 2.3 km. As the remaining place is difficult to access vehicles, the estate authorities levelled 600 m without the forest department’s permission.
A Nilgiris-based environmentalist told TNIE, “The forest department should book the estate owner. Registering cases and arresting people who work at their behest is an eyewash. Several shola trees have been felled and such incidents have been going on for the past month. However, the forest officials came to know about this on Tuesday.”