Despite SC order, MP goes whole hog on tiger tourism

Within days of the Supreme Court order lifting the ban on tourism in tiger areas, the Madhya Pradesh government directed tiger reserve directors to allow tourism in tiger reserves.

Updated on: Oct 23, 2012, 24:21:06 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Within days of the Supreme Court order lifting the ban on tourism in tiger areas, the Madhya Pradesh government directed tiger reserve directors to allow tourism in tiger reserves.

The apex court on October 16 has issued an order allowing resumption of tourism activity in 41 tiger reserves in India on the condition that they should be as per the new guidelines of the National Tiger Conservation Authority notified a day earlier. “Henceforth, tourism activities will be strictly in accordance with the guidelines,” the court had said.

Madhya Pradesh's principal chief conservator of forests P K Shukla on October 19 instructed directors of all tiger reserves, except Kanha, asking them to resume tourism as per the carrying capacity of core areas decided by his department on December 26, 2007.

“It is made clear that the guideline is applicable for entire day,” his letter said, adding that the reserves will have to decide the number of tourist vehicles to be allowed in morning and evening hours as per the 2007 guideline.

In case of Kanha, Shukla’s letter said, tourism area should be earmarked as per the directions issued in September 2011, which allows tourism in around 37% of the core area. The NTCA guideline has said tourism should not be allowed in more than 20% of the core area and in reserves it should be brought down to 20% in five years.

Ajay Dubey, who had filed PIL in the SC seeking a ban on tourism activity inside core areas, said the state order violates court’s directions. “I will file a contempt suit if the government does not modify its orders,” he said.

The MP government has, however, referred to the NTCA guidelines with regard to regulating tourism activity inside tiger habitats.

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

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