GUWAHATI, July 2 ? More than 143 square kilometre of land belonging to the National Parks and wild-life sanctuaries in Assam is under encroachment by doubtful citizens and so far the State Government has not taken any step to evict those people, alleged the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP). In a petition to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Sri Hitendra Nath Goswami and Sri Dilip Kumar Saikia, the chief whip and secretary of the AGP legislature party, said that encroachment of the forest land by illegal settlers reached menacing proportion. A number of doubtful citizens managed to enter Assam from the neighbouring countries by crossing the porous and practically unguarded international border and settled in the forest land. The State Government is totally silent on the issue, the petition said.
The AGP legislators alleged that the illegal settlers were receiving patronage from the State Government as the Government used its might and force to evict the local ethnic population from the encroached forest land in and around Guwahati city and elsewhere in the State without any arrangement for their rehabilitation, but no step was taken to evict the doubtful citizens from the National Parks and wild-life sanctuaries. ?While appreciating the concern of the Supreme Court on the matter of encroachment of the forest land for preservation of ecology and environment in the North Eastern region of the country, we would like to put on record our deep anguish at the haphazard manner in handling the issue by the State Government. For instance, in its affidavit to the Supreme Court, the State Government categorised mass and organised encroachment by the ethnic groups as one of the three major groups of encroachers, while, there is virtually no mention of the large-scale encroachment of the National Parks and wild life sanctuaries by the doubtful citizens,? the petition added.
The petition gave a detailed account of the encroachment in the National Parks and sanctuaries including the Kaziranga National Park (50 sq km), Manas National Park (17 sq km), Dibru Saikhowa National Park (three sq km), Nameri National Park (5 sq km), Orang National Park (8 sq km), Pabitora Wild Life Sanctuary (2 sq km), Laokhowa Wild Life Sanctuary (4 sq km), Burachapor Wild Life Sanctuary (28.5 sq km), Barnodi Wild Life sanctuary (6 sq km) and Sonai Rupa wild life sanctuary (19.5 sq km). The petition said that lakhs of doubtful citizens even constructed permanent and semi-permanent houses within the National Parks and wild life sanctuaries and some of these people are indulging in acts of poaching and giving shelter to the international gangs of poachers. The petition alleged that some of the sitting and former legislators of the ruling Congress party clandestinely set up tea gardens in forest land, while, a number of tea companies have encroached large chunks of forest land in connivance with successive Congress Governments in the State. The Congress Government has preferred to pass the blame of encroachment mainly on the ethnic population of Assam with the political intention of appeasing the voters of a particular community, the petition added.
The petition pointed out that the ethnic population of Assam have been living in close harmony with the forest for ages and they clearly understand the interrelationship between the forest cover and well being of the people. The forest cover in the State eroded alarmingly due to the wrong policies of the State Government. It is true that there were some encroachments of forest land by the ethnic population affected by floods and erosion but this happened because of the failure of successive governments to arrange rehabilitation of those people, the petition said. The AGP said that in the past, the State Government allotted settlement to flood affected people in forest land, while the British Government had offered settlement in forest land way back in 1942.
The petition alleged that over the years, the State Forest Department paid no attention to the ever increasing problem of encroachment of forest land. The successive State Governments even constructed roads, provided water and electricity supply to the encroached areas and the Forest Department failed to lodge any protest in this regard. The petition also urged upon the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to send a high-level committee to Assam for an on the spot study of the encroachment of forest land and the State Government?s action in this regard.