Karwar: For the first time in the history of Karnataka, Uttara Kannada district administration has developed a web portal to clear the forest land right-related applications.

The portal has been developed with help from the National Information Centre. It will soon be open for public to file applications for forest land rights. Forest areas account for more than 70 per cent of the district.

Though many people have been living in or cultivating forest lands, they still have not got rights over the lands. They have been fighting for the same under the Forest Rights Act-2006 for many years.

According to sources, many people have submitted applications to the district administration and the state government seeking forest land rights. Thought a few of the applications were rejected, still thousands are pending with the administration.

DC S S Nakul said: ‘About 54,000 applications are pending with us and all these data are being loaded on the new portal. With this, the applicants can check where the file is pending, weather it is at the gram samiti or at the district administration.

We will provide a unique number to each applicant. With that, they can check the status of their files on the portal.