By Pervez Bari, TwoCircles.net
Bhopal : The Supreme Court has granted permission to the Madhya Pradesh Government for carrying out construction works relating to drinking water, power supply, school buildings, aganwadis and hospital buildings in the forest villages located within the national parks and sanctuaries in the state.
It may be mentioned that the aforesaid decision has been given by the Supreme Court on September 14 last on a petition filed by the state government in compliance with the directives of the Chief Minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
The decision would help remove the difficulties of thousands of forest dwellers residing in forest areas of the state in a big way.
The Tribal Welfare and Forest Minister, Vijay Shah and Chief Conservator of Forests R.D. Khare informedthe Chief Minister Chouhan about the decision of the Apex court here today. Following the pronouncement of an earlier decision of the Supreme Court, various development works pertaining to construction of government school buildings, aganwadis,
government dispensaries etc. were not being executed in the villages situated inside the national parks and sanctuaries in a number of districts including Hoshangabad, Obaidullaganj (Raisen), Seoni, Dindori, Umariya, Sidhi etc.
Similarly, works relating to laying of small pipelines for providing drinking water facility to the villagers and 11 K.V. lines were not being carried out in the wake of the earlier decision of the Supreme court.
Further, the Chief Minister had issued instructions to the Forest Department to initiate steps towards seeking permission for execution of community development works. A team of state government officers had visited Delhi to take up the issue with the Union Government. Subsequently, necessary steps were taken to obtain the requisite permission from the Apex court in this regard. ([email protected])