Amarnath Naik, a farmer, who has had an agricultural produce of Rs 2.5 lakh annually suddenly finds himself in the middle of nowhere thanks to the state government’s decision to construct an approach road for the Electronic City through his tenanted land.
Amarnath cultivated cashew, jackfruits, black plum, Kokum etc in his 8600 sq meters of tenanted land in Survey no 38/6, which is on a slope and is demarcated as a ‘No Development Zone’, but the government suddenly decided to build an approach road on this land by cutting around 400 trees.
What’s more, the government just took an affidavit from the original owner, Surendranath Sripad Shenvi Desai for widening of the road to 20 meter of width and submitted it to the forest department for an NOC. (copies of both NOC and affidavit are in possession of Herald).
Shockingly though, visits by Herald to the site revealed that no road exists on the said land.
The forest department has issued a conditional NOC to the PWD stating that, “In case of any claim over ownership of trees, the agency (PWD) would be solely responsible.”
The forest department also directed the PWD to maintain a register of the number of trees felled and the number of logs made from each tree.
However, Amarnath says, the 442 trees which have been cut are just lying by the roadside for months now. “They have neither taken it themselves nor have they told me about it,” he says.
“How can there be a road constructed in a place which has 0.3 density of forest cover?” he further questioned.
He added that after his complaints, the flying squad, led by Siddhi Halarnkar, had stopped the work on October 1, 2015 but two days later it started again.
“..and when I asked why the work started despite the flying squad order, I was arrested by Pernem police and kept in a lockup for a day for no fault of mine,” he said.
Amarnath further said that he along with his family who depended on the agricultural produce protested, but none of the villagers supported him as only he has lost land in Vironda village.
He says that his son, who is a kabaddi player, would sell jackfruits for his education and sports requirements but now he has nothing.
Amarnath’s wife and two other children look dejected by the injustice meted out to them by the state government and especially the Chief Minister.
He has also written to the Governor, Mridula Sinha but is hurt that even she has not replied to him.
