The Seshachalam forest, sprawled in over 4 lakh hectare in the Tirupati wildlife circle, is probably one of the forests which can proudly proclaim to have registered lowest encroachments in the state.
Of the three divisions, including Tirupati, Chittoor East and Rajampet, only Chittoor East division has felicitously witnessed no encroachment.
According to Tirupati forest office, the encroached lands in Chittoor district had been pegged at 1,072 hectare, while around 20,000 acres of lands had been regularised to a few families under the Recognition of Forest Right (RoFR) Act.
The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) had mooted a proposal for diversion of 80 hectare of forest lands to build Kumaradhara Pasupudhara Water Reservoir in Sri Venkateswara Sanctuary area of Tirumala hill Reserve Forest.
In this regard, the user Agency deposited an amount of `4.64 crore towards Net Present Value of the land on Feb 4, 2005 and requested the government to accord permission for stage-II of the project.
Another such proposal include 4.44 hector of forest lands at Karakambadi of Renigunta mandal.
Except these two, no encroachment or diversion took place under the Tirupati forest division.
Tirupati chief conservator of forest (CCF) PV Chalapathy Rao said they have initiated action against encroachers. “We will book cases against them under the Forest Act and will take strict action.”
Forest department officials said encroachments in Tirupati is less compared to other circles in the state. “This can be credited to our efforts and low fraction of Tribal in the forest area,” expounded the forest officials.