The Nainital High Court has ordered the government of Uttarakhand to evict the residents of Baggha54, a village in Udham Singh Nagar district, living on forestland for more than 40 years. The high court issued the order in September 2018. According to the court, the village falls in the reserve forest area, says a media report. Principal conservator of forests Jai Raj told Land Conflict Watch, As per official data, around 9,500 hectares of forestland in Uttarakhand have been encroached in different ways. In many cases, the settlements were made by the government and people have been living there for decades. The government cannot suddenly evict them because of some court order. In 2015, political leader Bhagat Singh Koshyari adopted SatpuraBaggha as a model village. The two villages share their border. During his fouryear tenure as member of parliament, Koshyari donated Rs 70 lakh to SatpuraBaggha for development work. The fund was utilised to create infrastructure, such as roads, water pipelines, electricity poles and a government college.