LARKANA, June 6: A committee making an inquiry into the illegal allotment and encroached forest land in Larkana decided to enter the entire declared forest land in the revenue records aiming to save it from further encroachment and illegal allotment.

The forest personnel in the meeting discovered that around 2,260 acres of Salhani forest land in Dokri Taluka that was illegally disposed off by the revenue department had been retrieved following the cancellation of a total of 110 bogus entries.

This piece of forest land was unlawfully disposed of in 1998 by the then deputy commissioner, Larkana, under the prime minister’s programme for landless Haris.

The Bombay presidency in 1887 had declared 50,000 acres as reserve forest land in the Larkana forest division, the sources said.

But since then to date not even a single acre has been entered into the revenue records which attracted revenue officials from time to time to dispose of it suiting their interests, the meeting was briefed.

The district officer, Revenue; conservator, Forests; the divisional forest officer, and the Mukhtiarkars of Larkana and Dokri attended the meeting.

The Mukhtiarkars were given the deadline to enter the forest land in the revenue records till June 16 so that the findings could be submitted to the district Nazim.

The meeting opposed the idea of referring the matter to the Board of Revenue, Sindh.

The district officer, Revenue, Larkana, told this correspondent that 74 acres of forest land illegally leased out by the irrigation department in Larkana had also been cancelled as the department refused to refresh leases. Soon action would be taken against irrigation officials who had leased out these pieces of forest land.

It was discovered that in four forests — Amrot (riverine), Amrot, Gajidero (riverine), and Ghanghriko around 593 acres of forest land was under encroachment which demands concrete efforts to get it vacated, the divisional forest officer said.