LARKANA, June 26: No progress has been made so far to protect forest land from the land-grabbers despite a June 15 decision taken by the executive district officer of Revenue Department.

At a meeting, chaired by the Zila Nazim, Khursheed Junejo, it was decided that the Mukhtiarkars of Larkana and Dokri would be directed to make insertions of declared forest land in village form 1-A and 7-A of the revenue record.

Sources in the Forest Department said on Monday that no such directives had so far been issued.

The delay is on the part of certain revenue officials, the district forest officer (DFO) claimed.

He said that precedent had been presented to the revenue officials that insertions used to be made on the bases of notifications issued no less than 100 years ago in cases pertaining to the forest land in Dadu and Shikarpur districts.

The DFO pointed out that the revenue officials had simply ignored the Zila Nazim’s directives regarding entries, through Mukhtiarkars, of 50,000 acres of forest land in the prescribed forms.

Forest officials have pointed out that 6,103-acre land — 3,163 acres in Shikarpur, 2,717 acres in Dadu and 223 acres in Larkana districts — has already been occupied illegally in the Larkana circle.

Forest department sources indicated that it was no more a secret that the land-grabbers were continuing their activities in connivance with certain unscrupulous employees of the revenue department.

Illegal allotment of forest land is also on the rise and it has been gathered that up to 9,664 acres of land — 2,368 acres in Larkana, 502 acres in Shikarpur and 6,794 acres in Dadu — has so far been allotted.

Another piece of 9,501 acres of forest land is withheld by the department for want of demarcation.

The Forest department officials have claimed that thousands of people were involved in obtaining forest land by illegal means.