Forest Department diverts 3168 acres to KLIS

Hyderabad Nov 28 : Central Forest Department has granted clearance for the kalkeshwaram project 3 days ago and on Monday the Forest Department has diverted 3,168.131 hectares of forest land for construction works under the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS).

The land is spread across eight forest divisions of Mahadevpur, Karimnagar-Sircilla, Siddipet, Yadadri, Medak, Nizamabad-Banswada, and Nirmal, will be used for the canals, tunnels, lift systems, surge pools, delivery cisterns, and reservoirs.

The State government will give 3,367.13 hectares of non-forest and 617.25 hectares of degraded forest land, besides taking up plantation of over 50 lakh saplings within the next three years as compensatory afforestation and the government has decided to declare the non-forest land transferred and mutated in favour of the Forest Department as reserved forest.

The diversion of forest land for the project would be a major boost for the government.