Goemkarponn Desk
PANAJI: Amidst rising cases of illegal hill cutting for alleged settlement conversion, TCP Minister Vishajit Rane on Monday announced to amend the law to impose Rs 25 lakhs fine for illegal hill cutting and plotting.
The announcement comes at a time when the Minister is facing backlash for rampant hill cutting across State and failure of TCP department to act.
Addressing a press conference, Rane said that his department is working on to bring in an amendment to the existing law to regulate hill cutting by imposing hefty fines and some stringent actions against the violators.
Rane said that his department proposes to impose a fine upto Rs 25 lakhs on illegal hill cutting and plotting. He said that these fines would be imposed in three categories for unauthorised activities beyond 25 degree gradient.
The Minister informed that so far the department has filed 900 FIRs of hill cutting. “These are the cases, where we have not granted any permission. Our department is acting wherever there are violations and we will continue to do so,” he said.
Rane said that the amendments will also speak about illegal plotting on orchard lands. “We will take action in such cases. We wont allow orchard land to be converted into settlement without prior permissions.Illegal plating of such land would be strictly dealt with,” he said.
Citing an example, Rane said that around 100 plots were being developed by illegal hill cutting in Dharkhand village of his constituency. “When the patch members brought to my notice, I directed TCP to act and register an FIR,” he said.
The recently concluded monsoon session of the State assembly had witnessed uproar over illegal hill cutting and rampant land conversions. Minister was at the back-foot over his department’s failure to act and for grant of permissions for such illegal acts.
