BENGALURU: Recently, a joint initiative by an NGO and reserve police force to green an empty patch of land in Shivanahalli village on the outskirts of Bengaluru resulted in people destroying all greening efforts. They claimed that this patch of land was outside the deemed forest area. Forest officials said fragmented green patches of land surrounding Bannerghatta National Park (BNP) have been a source of conflict as land prices are very steep due to its proximity to Bengaluru.
On September 3, the Bannerghatta Nature Conservation Trust (BNCT) had planted 250 saplings on 0.6 acres on Survey No 69 in Ragihalli Panchayat in Shivanahalli village, along with Karnataka State Reserve Police Force personnel. However, the same night, locals uprooted all the saplings.
No farming activities have taken place on this patch for the past 8-10 years and it was left fallow as it was an undulating forest-like land, said a local resident. “There was a long-term understanding between the BNCT and the farmers and so the land was left untouched.
However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, with village youths losing jobs in Bengaluru and returning home, they wanted to claim these patches.” With a complaint lodged with the Anekal Range office, forest officials said the ‘conflict patch’ in Survey No 69 did not fall within the deemed forest area. S R Krishna, Anekal Range Forest Officer (RFO) said, “We found about 0.6 acres of the land was not within the deemed forest. It is gomala land.” Survey No 69 has a ‘deemed forest’ comprising about 380 acres. However, this deemed forest (declared in 2014) is yet to be notified.
An affidavit on this issue was filed in the Supreme Court in 2018. There are many such empty patches in this survey number where no farming activities have taken place for decades. The RFO adds, “But such isolated patches have to be confirmed on ground with concrete or stone pillars if they fall within a deemed forest or not.” With network being very poor in these lands, forest officials find it difficult to do surveys. Earlier, joint surveys of such patches were done with GPS coordinates. Now, a joint survey with the revenue department has to be done by marking the ‘boundaries on ground’ for deemed forests.