Minister for Forest, Environment and Ecology Eshwar Khandre said on Monday that a joint survey taken up by the Forest and Revenue departments to identify the extent of deemed forest in the State is now 60-65% complete.

Speaking to presspersons in Karkala of Udupi district, the Minister said that this is the third revision of deemed forests in Karnataka, taken up after a 1996 direction by the Supreme Court to protect green spaces not notified as forests.

The first report in 2002 estimated deemed forest in Karnataka at 9.94 lakh hectares. It was revised down to 3.33 lakh hectares in 2022. The then government (in 2022) led by the BJP filed an affidavit before the apex court on the same.

But the report prepared during the tenure of BJP led government had several errors. The deemed forest area, as per the report, contained government buildings, schools, hospitals and private ‘patta’ land. The third revision is now under way to rectify the errors.

The Minister said the joint survey has been completed in such districts which have less forest area and it is under way in those districts which have large extent of forest area where some survey numbers have been classified both as revenue and forest land. There are some issues in such survey numbers which are being addressed.

Referring to the penalty to be payable by KIOCL to the Forest Department, the Minister said the matter is before the High Court and the government will act as per the court directions.

Earlier, he inaugurated the new buildings of the offices of Range Forest Officer and Assistant Conservator of Forest, Kudremukh Wildlife Division at Karkala.

The Minister instructed the department to provide the field level staff shoes, jackets and sticks for their safety while protecting forest. He also inspected the lightweight guns provided to the ground level staff.

He asked senior officials of the department to provide residential quarters to the field level staff and ensure that they get risk allowance.