Mangaluru: The BJP government’s statements on dropping over 6,000 lakh hectares of land from the ‘deemed forest’ list are just political statements to mislead public, former forest minister and KPCC vice-president B Ramanath Rai charged on Monday.

The deemed forest issue remains as complex as before, Rai said while addressing reporters at the Congress Bhavan.

He recollected that in 1997 Karnataka’s list of ‘Deemed to be Forest’ land (land with characteristics of a forest) was rejected as unscientific by the Supreme Court.

Even schools, agricultural land and Bagar hukum land had been identified as deemed forest, Rai said. 

‘‘As forest minister in 2014, I had ordered a joint survey of deemed forest land by forest and revenue departments. A committee, led by its president Meenakshi Negi (who is presently serving as the Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests) in its report, had identified 3.30 out of 10.11 lakh hectares as deemed forest,’’ he said.

“The same report was submitted to the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF),” Rai added.

But the chief minister has gone ahead saying that deemed forest issue was solved without getting an approval of MoEF or orders from apex court, he said. On whether officials had mislead the government on the deemed forest issue, Rai said, “Present chief secretary Vandita Sharma and previous chief secretary T M Vijay Bhaskar, who had served as the additional chief secretary in the forest department while I was the forest minister, are aware about the issue.”

The chief minister must order a physical verification of deemed forest land before submitting a final report to the MoEF and the SC, he added.

Former mayor Sashidhar Hegde, Opposition Leader Naveen D’Souza among others were also present.