SATARA, November 21: The State Forest Department has threatened to take over a bungalow built by Goa's first chief minister after the liberation of the territory.

The 33-year lease for the land expires in July 1999, and in their drive to reacquire all forest lands given on lease to individuals and institutions, the Forest Department has slammed a resumption notice on the Bandodkar family, which gave Goa two CMs - Dayanand and his daughter Shashikala. The Bandodkar family is not alone in facing the onslaught of the forest department. Sharing their predicament of land surrender is the Central Railway which has a holiday camp on forest land, the lease of which expired in 1988. Same is the case with Mahabaleshwar's own Municipal Council which for decades located its octroi posts over the forest land. Both the Central Railway and the Mahabaleshwar Hill Station Municipal Council face the embarrassment of surrendering the land back to the Forest Department.

Acting in consonance with the present environmental protection campaign at the hill station, the deputy conservator of forests stationed at Satara P N Munde in October served resumption notices on 10 forest land lease holders and even promptly taken over the Golf link and the polo ground which were not in use for ages. In Mahabaleshwar, along with the desired effect of protecting the forest land this has also created a social problem. In addition to the 10 leases, land under which is being taken back, in three cases there are housing societies of the common man standing on the forest land. These leases were generously granted by the state government in 1968 to the cooperative socities by carving out the forest land and granting them 99-year leases which expire only in 2067 AD.

Will the forest department terminate these leases midway and take over the land? Deputy Conservator Munde has no answer. This is an issue the government has to settle at a higher level, the official says. He feels, at lease the unbuilt excess land with these housing societies can immediately be taken over and brought under plantation to enlarge Mahabaleshwar's green cover.

Most leases covering most of the hill station area, however, were granted by the Revenue Department and not by the forest. There are 114 revenue leases covering nearly 300 hecatres (over 750 acres) of the the thickly wooded land on which bungalows were built by the elite of Mumbai and western Maharashtra during the last century with encouragment from the British rulers who wanted Mahabaleshwar to develop into a hill resort. Each of these plots is spread over three to seven acres and during the recent years commercial exploitation had been digging roots at the expense of the fragile tree wealth of Mahabaleshwar. Old bungalows began converting into residential hotels with dining halls or holiday homes for corporate houses. Often, lease holders built extensions and in the process chopped off full grown trees. While the state government has still not taken a firm decision on taking over the surplus land in revenue lease hold properties, there was no question of vaccilating over the forest leases.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.