Bengaluru: In a big relief to lakhs of families staying in the green rich districts of the state including Dakshina Kannada and Udupi, Karnataka rejected the Kasturirangan report again.
A sub-committee headed by State revenue minister R Ashok, and Minister of Forest and Ecology, Anand Singh recommended the state government to reject this report aimed at conserving the Western Ghats.
“The Kasturirangan report is unscientific. This will affect the villagers in that region. There are loopholes in the report and there is opposition at all levels, from a gram panchayat to an assembly constituency,” Revenue Minister R Ashoka told reporters.
Besides Karnataka, the report also affects five other states in the country–Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu.
According to the sources, the state government accepted the report and decided to communicate the state government’s decision to the Centre within the next two days.
According to the Kasturirangan Committee, 20,668 sqkm across 11 districts that fall under the Westen Ghasts with 1592 villages will be considered as Ecological Sensitive Area (ESA) and this will hamper government’s efforts to develop these areas.
It can be recalled that recently villagers of over 40 Gram Panchayats across the state boycotted the elections in protest against the implementation of this report
Earlier, the Centre had sought the opinion of all the states about the implementation of the report which was prepared by the well-known scientist K Kasturirangan and his team when UPA was in power at the Centre.
