‘Centre has failed villagers in Western Ghats region’

The Shivamogga District Congress Committee (SDCC) has alleged that the Union government has failed to clear the apprehensions of residents of 1,576 villages in the Western Ghats region in Karnataka, including 492 villages in Shivamogga district, over the report of Kasturirangan panel on the conservation of Western Ghats.

Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, B.A. Ramesh Hegde, secretary, SDCC, said these villages fall under the purview of Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA) as per the report. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits Karnataka to campaign for Assembly election, he should reveal the Centre’s stand on the report of Kasturirangan panel, he said.

Mr. Hegde said there are apprehensions that following the declaration of these villages as ESA, restrictions would be imposed here on sand extraction from river banks, quarrying, execution of works related to providing civic amenities including roads, drainage, drinking water and electricity connection for human habitats here. Small and marginal farmers engaged in cultivation of government land here fear that, an ESA declaration would come in the way of conferring land grants to them, he said.

Regarding the notification issued by the Centre on February 27, 2017, on declaration of these villages as ESA as per the recommendations of the report, he said that to protect the interests of the people residing in the villages that fall under the purview of the proposed ESA, the meeting of State Cabinet held on April 19, 2017, decided to recommend the Centre to withdraw the notification. The State Cabinet had also opposed the implementation of the report. The State government had written to the Centre on April 22, 2017, demanding the withdrawal of the notification and expressing its opposition to the report. However, the government at the Centre had not replied to the letter so far, owing to which the people in the 1,576 villages are gripped by a sense of insecurity and uncertainty regarding their future. In an affidavit filed with National Green Tribunal in 2014, the Union government had expressed its commitment to the implementation of the Kasturirangan panel report, he said.

While campaigning for the previous Lok Sabha election in Western Ghats region in Karnataka, BJP leaders had promised to take measures to clear the apprehensions among the people on the ESA declaration. The leaders have failed to fulfilled the promise. In the Parliament session too, BJP MPs from Karnataka have not raised the issue, he added.