THE HINDU Book forest encroachers, VS tells Chandy Thursday, Sep 09, 2004 By Our Special Correspondent THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, SEPT. 11. The Leader of the Opposition, V.S. Achuthanandan, today asked the Chief Minister, Oommen Chandy, to ensure that the real culprits involved in the destruction of the forests in Jeerakappara area in Kozhikode district were brought to book. In a letter sent to the Chief Minister, he said that, during his visit to the area on September 7, the local people had named two persons as the real culprits. The Forest officials, however, were trying to hoodwink the people by charging cases only against the workers hired by these persons. Mr. Achuthanandan gave in his letter the names of both the individuals. The Opposition leader said a large number of trees were cut down in Jeerakappara and taken away by the encroachers. The impression he had got during his visit to the area was that it could not have taken place without the knowledge of Forest officials. The local people and the panchayat members too had told him of the connivance of Forest officials. `Hydel projects He said the destruction of the forests of Jeerakappara would ruin the two mini-hydel projects having a total power generation capacity of 5 mW constructed with Chinese assistance at Chembukadavu. These forests were located in the catchment area of the Tusharagiri River, across which the mini-hydel projects were set up. If these forests disappeared, the flow down the river would diminish, adversely affecting the efficiency of the hydel projects. Mr. Achuthanandan further said that these forests perfectly answered the definition of `ecologically fragile lands as given in the Ordinance promulgated in 2000 by the State Government for taking over and protecting ecologically-sensitive areas. Court cases He noted that the encroachers had made several attempts in the past to take over prime forests of the area. Their usual modus operandi was being repeated here. There had been hundreds of instances of such encroachers first marking out territories in the forests and then proceeding to the court to get their claims legitimised. They would rope in the support of the officials and Government advocates to attain their target. Mr. Achuthanandan said that, according to the information received by him, the Government had recently withdrawn a Special Leave Petition moved in the Supreme Court challenging the claims placed on some areas of the Jeerakappara forests by certain individuals. This Government move was tantamount to issuing the green signal for forest encroachment, he said.
Posted on: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 16:47:39 +0000
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