bengaluru flagging largescale violations of forest and environment rules around biligiri ranga temple brt tiger reserve in chamarajanagar district national tiger conservation authority has found that as many as nine resorts hotels and homestays are being operated illegally within the reserves ecosensitive zonethe officials have directed karnataka forest department officials to initiate legal action against proprietors of these businesses besides bringing these violations to the notice of other competent departments and enforcing agencies the ntca team was led by harini venugopal assistant inspector general of forests the team also visited private lands in punajanur village limits where agricultural lands were converted into layoutplots as part of real estate activities in her report submitted to the member secretary and additional director general of forests project tiger ntca new delhi on november 28 harini recommended that field director of brt deep j contractor can review the cases with regard to various violationsbased on the outcome of these reviews legal action shall be taken up casewise by the competent authorities namely revenue forest environment tourism and urban development departments and state pollution control board as per law those matters which are subjudice in the court shall be pursued by the field officials of brt with respective departments and resolved as per law harini said in her report no land conversionaccording to the findings a few of the hotels did not even convert the land for commercial operations homestays did not get permission from the tourism department and a resort failed to get clearance from kspcbgiridhar kulkarni a techieturnedconservation volunteer who complained to ntca on illegal operations within the limits of brt reserve said currently the state faces a greater challenge to mitigate rising incidents of humananimal conflict which are the direct result of such commercial activities the government should take the recommendations of ntca seriously and take immediate action against the violations to safeguard brt tiger reserve as it is also a key elephant habitat and a wildlife corridor between karnataka and tamil nadu