'Sansadara Angala' says 'No' to world heritage tag

Delegation to convince govts on problems of Kodagu

Addressing the ‘Sansadara angala’ programme in Madikeri on Sunday, he said that first of all the state and the central governments should be convinced about the need to exclude the district from the heritage tag.
“A delegation of experts, elected representatives, journalists etc will meet Minister for Environment Jairam Ramesh and speak on their opinion on Unesco’s heritage spot list,” he said adding that the deliberations of the meeting will be collected, translated into
English and Hindi and will be sent to Unesco and Central government.
He informed that the Unesco says that the World Heritage site status will be given only after taking the opinion of the local residents. In such a case the local residents’ opinion will have lot of value. “We believe the decision will not be taken on the say of couple of people,” he said.
Land problem
Vishwanath said that entire state is reeling under land related problems. “Denotification, encroachment, akrama, ownership and every problem related land is cropping up in the state. In Kodagu alone three lakh acre has been encroached. How do we believe this,” he said and held officials responsible for the plight in the district.
“The negligent officials have marked bane land as forest land. There is a need to explain to the state clearly about bane land,” he said, Particiants Dr Durgaprasad, Chidvilas, Nanda Subbaiah, B S Thammaiah, J P Raju, Nanda Bellyappa, Col R Muthanna, Madhu Bopanna endorsed this view.

List of problems
Leader A K Subbaiah listed the various problems of the district and said that the main problem in the district is that the primitive tribes in the district have been deprived of their rights.

He said that the Supreme Court order (in reference to Chakkera Poovaiah case) that bane land should be considered as traditional land, should be implemented completely.

There is a need to fight against the conspiracy of the Forest Department, which is trying to declare Bane and Paisari land as forest land. Third problem, as pointed by Subbaiah was the confusion with regard to ownership right of trees.

He said that the fake environmentalists are trying to bring entire district under the Unesco’s heritage list, which should be averted. 
BJP absent

Sansadara angala meet went on for over five hours. Ever since the heritage spot issue came up in the district, this is for the first time that people for and against the issue were meeting on one platform. Though environmentalists, organisation representatives, elected representatives, political leaders and local residents took part in the discussion, local BJP MLAs and representatives were missing.

When asked about the same, Vishwanath said that he had convened this meeting not as a Congress leader but as a MP. Hence BJP leaders should have participated.