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Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The forest department's demolition of houses built on encroached forest land in Kosmi village of Budhni assembly constituency has once again brought the issue of forest land encroachment into focus.

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More worrying is the steady rise in encroachment cases across Madhya Pradesh. According to official data obtained from the forest department, a total of 6,37,629.23 hectares of forest land across 50 districts is under encroachment.

In Bhopal division alone, 74,597.24 hectares of forest land are under encroachment. Bhopal district accounts for 6,032.32 hectares, while Raisen has 23,017.25 hectares, Sehore 22,494.35 hectares, Vidisha 19,840.39 hectares and Rajgarh 3,212.93 hectares.

In other divisions, Indore has the highest encroachment at 2,28,852.41 hectares, followed by Gwalior with 1,05,472.47 hectares, Sagar with 65,708.310 hectares, Rewa with 53,086.20 hectares, Jabalpur with 42,906.26 hectares, Chambal with 20,205.73 hectares, Ujjain with 18,303.10 hectares, Shahdol with 16,300.68 hectares and Narmadapuram with 12,196.828 hectares.

Forest Development Corporation land also under encroachment

Besides, 12,747.362 hectares of land belonging to the Madhya Pradesh State Forest Development Corporation are also under encroachment. The corporation plays an important part in improving degraded forests through plantation.

Encroachers damage the plantations by carrying out encroachment. Sources in the corporation said that cases of encroachment increased by leaps and bounds from 2018 to 2022 in the state.

Poor people living in some districts migrate to other districts and start dwelling inside forest areas. Many of them have pucca houses in their native areas.

As per the forest act, 'patta' could be given to dwellers who have been living on forest land till 2005. After this, all encroachments by forest dwellers are considered illegal and such forest dwellers are evicted from time to time.

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