Revision of deemed forests: Report in six months: Forest Minister Eshwar Khandre

Belagavi: The government has formed committees under deputy commissioners to review a May 2022 notification that identified 3.30 lakh hectares of deemed forests and ‘delete’ parcels that were wrongly classified, Forest Minister Eshwar Khandre told the Assembly on Thursday.

The committees have been asked to submit their reports in six months, the minister said while replying to a question by Bangarpet Congress MLA SN Narayanaswamy on farmers being evicted from lands identified as forests in Kolar.

“The Supreme Court has ordered: once a forest, always a forest,” Khandre said. “Without a forest clearance, we can’t use forest lands for non-forest use.”

Khandre said the Supreme Court, in the Godavarman case, ordered that all non-forest lands must be brought under the ‘deemed forest’ tag. “All states, including Karnataka, formed a committee. In the first phase, the committee report said there were 10 lakh hectares of deemed forest. There were faults found as even villages were included,” he said.

“The previous [BJP] government, in 2022, gave the Supreme Court an affidavit that there were 3.30 lakh hectares of deemed forests. Even this had mistakes as several villages and schools got included. Now, the Supreme Court has said it must be revised,” Khandre said, adding that a joint survey of forest and revenue departments is underway.

“After deletion, we’ll take the required land from the revenue department and present it to the Supreme Court. That should settle the matter,” Khandre said.

BJP’s V Sunil Kumar said the joint survey must be completed soon and MLAs should be consulted before finalising the extent of deemed forests. To this, Khandre said: “The report (on revising deemed forests) will be placed in the Karnataka Development Programme (KDP) meetings.”

Senior BJP MLA Araga Jnanendra said the ‘deemed forests’ matter “is a burning issue in the entire Malnad region”.