BENGALURU: BJP legislators from the Malnad region have appealed to the state government to emulate neighbouring Kerala to save human habitats which will disappear if the Kasturirangan report on saving the Western Ghats is implemented.
Participating in the debate on the issue in the backdrop of the notification from the Union government for implementation of the report, which has identified 1,576 villages in the Western Ghats region in the state as falling under eco-sensitive zone, BJP members in the Assembly K G Bopanna and Jeevaraj blamed the state government for the present crisis.
Pointing to Kerala, which has successfully got hundreds of villages taken off the list of Eco sensitive Zone by presenting separate reports from each of those villages through ‘gram sabhas’ explaining that they are lying in revenue lands and some of the lands shown as forest lands in satellite Imagery were in fact plantation crops.
Bopanna and Jeevaraj wanted the state government to also seek more time from the Green Bench and the Union government to submit its objections to the Kasturirangan Report.
Karnataka had filed its objections based on a report of the cabinet sub-committee instead of doing it through gram panchayats concerned, the BJP members said.