BENGALURU: With just about two months to go for the much-awaited biennial Aero India, Air Force Station Yelahanka — where the country’s premier air show takes place from February 10-14 — is on the radar of the state government, the forest department in particular.
The forest department has raised the red flag saying the land where Aero India is held is a part of a 159.28-acre reserve forest patch in Survey Number 49, in Gantiganahalli forest block in Bengaluru North taluk, and has sought land in its lieu elsewhere in the city.
According to the October 1, 1931, gazette notification and government order, the land is a reserve forest patch, and there is no indication of it being denotified. The Karnataka government has been hosting Aero India at the location since 1996.
The issue came to the fore at the December 3, 2024, Civil Military Liaison meeting, chaired by Chief Secretary Shalini Rajneesh. At the meeting, the forest department suggested to the defence establishments to file an application on the Parivesh portal asking for the land and giving land to the forest department in lieu of it, elsewhere in the city.
A senior forest department official told TNIE: “The land used by the Indian Air Force is a part of the reserve forest patch and it has not been denotified. However, it has lost all its characteristic of being a forest and has no green/tree cover after 2012.”
The official said neither the forest department nor the revenue department has any document stating that the land was handed over to the defence establishments.
‘Records say it’s forest land’
“We have initiated Section 64(A) proceedings under the Forest Conservation Act, asking the IAF and the defence agencies to submit the concerned documents proving their ownership on the land,” the official said.
“We stumbled upon the findings that this is forest land while reviewing the government land records and comparing them with Google Earth images using AI tools created by the teams. In the Godhavarman case, the Supreme Court had said, “Once a forest is always a forest until it is denotified,” the official said.
A senior revenue department official said: “We have gone through revenue records to ascertain who is the owner of the land. But no documents of handing over have been found. Rights, Tenancy and Crops (RTC) records say it’s forest land.”
The December 3 meeting was primarily called to discuss recovery and possession of the 452 acres of reserve forest land in Jalahalli, next to the contentious HMT land, which is now used by the defence as a shooting practice range. “The meeting was called to discuss why the Jalahalli forest land was not reverted back to the forest department when the state government had issued orders in 2017.
While the defence personnel said they have paid Rs 1.65 crore to the revenue department for the Jalahalli land, they had no proof to show the same. They also had no proof to show that the land was denotified. The RTC records show that both the land parcels (Yelahanka and Jalahalli) belong to the forest department,” the forest department official said.