Areca, banana on 28 acres of land razed down in Karnataka's Bhadravati

Bhadravathi: A team of staff of forest department led by Deputy Conservator of Forests Ashish Reddy razed down areca nut trees, banana, tur crops grown on around 28 acres of encroached forest land using earth-mover vehicles at Gudumaghatta in Bhadravathi taluk coming under the purview of Shantisagar range and reclaimed the forest land.

Sources in forest department stated that eight persons had encroached the forest land in 2015 and had grown arecanut, banana and other crops. After learning about this, a case was filed in the court of assistant conservator of forests.

The officer issued an order stating that forest land had been encroached. The encroachers had filed writ petition in Karnataka high court and had also appealed to the chief conservator of forest court. Both the courts dismissed their claim and declared it as forest land as per The Karnataka Forest Act, 1963. Based on these orders, forest encroachment had been cleared.

Assistant Conservator of Forests Ratnaprabhu, Shantisagar Range Forest Officer Ratnaprabhu and staff of the department were part of the team that reclaimed forest land.