Acting on Supreme Court orders for evicting unauthorised occupants from the colony of the Irrigation Department (Uttar Pradesh) at Kalagarh in Corbett tiger reserve, the Pauri district administration has undertaken a survey and plans to hold a meeting soon with officials concern to facilitate implementation of the SC order.
It is pertinent to mention that in a civil writ petition, the Supreme Court had in December last year directed that encroachments should not be allowed inside Corbett. Uttarakhand was directed to take steps accordingly while Uttar Pradesh was directed to do the needful required of it.
The Pauri district sub divisional magistrate (Kotdwar) Puran Singh Rana informed The Pioneer, “Out of the 854.93 acre land in question 354.57 acre is with the Irrigation department while 279 acres has been returned to the Forest Department. We are working on the eviction of the unauthorised occupants from the remaining area including the hundreds of families who had shifted to this colony due to floods in 2010. land records have been checked and a survey has been undertaken,” he said.
The lok Sabha elections, Assembly bypolls and Panchayat elections held earlier this year caused some delay in the process of evicting illegal occupants from the colony, but a meeting will be held with the district magistrate soon to facilitate execution of the Supreme Court orders, said the SDM.
Regarding concerns raised by some wildlife activists regarding the the State government’s plan to make Kalagarh a municipality area, the State additional secretary, Forests, Manoj Chandran said that in this case it would be more of a change of nomenclature and would not violate the law as long as no non-forestry activity is allowed there.