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Anti-Corruption police chief inspects illegal forest road (Oct 2007)

Dear all,

Last Friday (12th October 2007) afternoon, I had been to the office ofthe Superintendent of Police, Lokayukta (Anti-corruption) Tumakuru, regarding the irregularities inside Devarayanadurga. After explaining him the situation, I offered to take him to Chinnaga. He readily accepted. I was surprised how a cop would accept to visit the forest with me in half an hour but the District's forest officials failed to do this even 4 months after filing the 1st written complaint (in June2007).

Myself and Mallikarjun went with him. The situation was the same inChinnaga area- there was sand lifting from the areas where the road has been built, people are taking out felled trees and there is illegal stone lifting going besides the road. The SP saw all this.While returning back to Swandenahalli village the SP himself enquired with the village road contractor asking him about the persons behind the Chinnaga road. The local village contractor told that the particular contractor who carried out blasting and felling in forestand the work in Chinnaga area was one Mr.Prakash of the nearby Birenahalli in Tumakuru Taluk. And guess what...the funds were directly provided by Tumkauru MLA, from his constituency development fund! The SP was not happy about this. He was convinced with our efforts and said he would summon the local RFO/ACF and AEE, ZP to seek an explanation on who is behind this road. After that, we took the SPto Devarayanadurga Wireless tower via Belagumba Village and Namadachelume. All along the way we showed and explained him the tree felling inside the reserve forest.

Following up with this, I filed a complaint of corruption and maladministration with the Lokayukta of Karnataka, Bangalore against the following forest officers incharge of this road:
- DCF, Tumakuru Territorial Division
- ACF, Tumakuru Territorial Sub-Division
- RFO, Tumakuru Territorial Range
- Forester, Swandenahalli/Chinnaga section, Tumakuru Territorial Range
- Forest Guard, Swandenahalli/Chinnaga section, Tumakuru Territorial Range

Kindly read details of the complaint at: http://tumkurenvironment.blogspot.com/2007/10/complaint-with-lokayukta-karnataka.html

You can monitor http://tumkurenvironment.blogspot.com for new developments on this and related issues.

In conservation,

Ameen

Ameen Ahmed
WANC,
Tumakuru

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