Residents around Pushpagiri oppose eco-sensitive zone status, seek state, Centre

Several people from the villages coming under eco-sensitive zone of Western Ghats here, blamed the elected representatives and officials for keeping them in dark, by not providing adequate information after the recent announcement on areas to be affected.

The villagers were enraged over their stiff opposition to Kasturirangan Committee Report engendering the zone, yielding no results even after bringing it to the notice of both the state and the Central governments.

During the gram sabha of Bettadalli gram panchayat held on Tuesday, the villagers resolved to forward the decision of the meeting to both the governments, opposing the final notification identifying the villages in the radius of one km around Pushpagiri wildlife as eco-sensitive zones.

At the meeting presided over by gram panchayat president H R Pavitra, Pushpagiri Wildlife ACF Dushyanth informed that Kumaralli village and forest area, totalling 448.21 hectares and Kotnalli and forest area totalling 307.99 hectares, have been included under eco-sensitive zone.

However, the villagers of Shantalli hobli were miffed at the officer when he failed to provide information about the exact number of villages under the hobli coming under the zone.

Villagers Venkatesh, Thammaiah, Ramachandra among others who vented their ire against elected representatives and officials demanded the panchayat to pass a resolution demanding the presence of respective MP, MLAs and senior officers from Forest department during the special gram sabha.

Villagers Satish, Mallappa, Sampath and Veeraraju took village accountant Umesh to task for pulling down a house near Mallalli waterfalls. They called it unscientific move by the department. Umesh clarified that the house was razed only after a serving a notice on the occupant for building the house on paisari land. The demolition was carried out following the order of the deputy commissioner.

However, zilla panchayat vice president Lokeshwari Gopal questioned the action of revenue personnel when ‘C’ and ‘D’ categories of land come under Forest department.