CM, wildlife dept differ on Panna buffer zone

Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan and the state wildlife department seem to be at loggerheads over notifying a buffer zone around the Panna tiger reserve.

Updated on: Mar 16, 2012, 01:39:05 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan and the state wildlife department seem to be at loggerheads over notifying a buffer zone around the Panna tiger reserve.

Chauhan was against declaring the area as a buffer zone in consideration of the local opposition, mostly comprising the mining mafia in the region. The same people were said to be responsible for firing at police personnel last Friday, an incident that culminated in the arrest of dacoit-turned-sand miner Kuber Singh.

"People are more important than tigers," Chauhan had said when local wildlife enthusiasts and the environment ministry sought the declaration of the green buffer zone around the reserve, rejecting any efforts in that regard.

Now, the internal response to the chief minister’s claim – as assessed by the Hindustan Times – shows that the wildlife wing of the state government was against non-declaration of the buffer zone around the Panna reserve, which had lost all its tigers in 2009.

The state government has already declared buffers around four other tiger reserves in the state – Kanha, Bandhavgarh, Pench and Satpura. However, Panna was kept in abeyance due to alleged resistance from local residents, which the wildlife department has described as a “misconception”.

“It will be kept in mind that no existing mine is closed due to declaration of the buffer zone,” said then chief conservator of forests HS Pabla in an internal note. He also claimed that if the buffer zone was not declared, the state government may face problems in getting funds amounting to Rs 535 crore from the Centre for relocating four villages in the core area of the tiger reserve.

Relocation of these villages is essential for providing an “inviolate area” to relocated tigers, and declaration of the buffer zone will provide 12 tigers in the reserve with enough space to spread out. “Otherwise, the tigers will die in infighting for space,” a local forest official said.

Despite a strong appeal by the wildlife department, the state government had failed to declare the buffer zone around the reserve, resulting in large-scale illegal mining of stone and sand from Ken river, a key source of water in the forested area. Even the National Tiger Conservation Authority had repeatedly asked the state government to declare the buffer zone.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Catch every big hit, every wicket with Crickit, a one stop destination for Live Scores, Match Stats, Infographics & much more. Explore now!

Stay updated with all top Cities including, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and more across India. Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News along with Delhi Election 2025 and Delhi Election Result 2025 Live, New Delhi Election Result Live, Kalkaji Election Result Live at Hindustan Times.