Plan to digitise forest boundaries in Telangana to address land disputes

Hyderabad: The Telangana Forest Department on Sunday said it planned to take up digitisation of forest boundaries like in Karnataka and Odisha to address disputes pertaining to forest land in several areas.

The disputes revolve around whether the particular area was forest land or revenue land, Telangana Principal Chief Conservator of Forests P K Jha said.

He said the government has taken feedback from Karnataka, which has done geo-referencing of their forest boundaries and Odisha, which has taken up a massive programme to digitise forest boundaries

"We are also going to prepare a similar plan to digitise the forest boundaries and freeze it to ensure there is no dispute in future about it," Jha told reporters here.

He was speaking on the sidelines of a two-day workshop on "Initiative and Innovations in the Forestry Sector", organised by the Telangana Forest Department, which saw participation of chief foresters of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka.

To a query on the June 30 incident at Kagaznagar, where a woman Forest Range Officer (FRO) and some staff were allegedly attacked, Jha said the incident has brought awareness among people on the difficulties involved in a forester's job.

"The fact is that our job is very very difficult. We have to sometimes fight with armed people and we don't have arms.

Awareness building is more important than carrying any weapon that can only supplement (our efforts). The biggest strength has to be from society.

If society understands the importance of forests and if they appreciated the services we render, I think that is the best protection we can have," Jha said.

FRO C Anitha was injured after she was attacked, allegedly by a group led by the brother of a ruling TRS MLA at Sarsala village in Kumuram Bheem Asifabad district over a land issue.

She had gone to the village with her staff and police for plantation on land under a compensatory afforestation scheme for Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project when she was attacked.

Koneru Krishna Rao, brother of Sirupur TRS MLA Koneru Kannapapa and 13 others were arrested for the assault.

Both Anitha and the Kagaznagar forest divisional officer have been provided armed security, police had said.

Maharashtra Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, U K Agarwal, who also spoke, said the tiger population in their state had increased to 240 from 103 in the 2006 census.

Besides this, there are 82 cubs/sub-adults as per the recent census "We need to have corridors....For their development, there has been re-location of many villages.

In Maharashtra, underpasses are being constructed on national highways (passing through forests)," Agarwal said.

He said a national conference on forests would be held in November in Maharashtra, where forest ministers and secretaries from all states would hold deliberations on protecting forests and also on formulating a national level policy.