Panel clears widening of road in core of Kaziranga
The proposal includes construction of elevated road in three stretches of about 20 km, 10 km and 5 km
The standing committee of the national board for wildlife (NBWL) has approved a proposal to divert 20.42 ha of forest land from the core zone of Kaziranga Tiger Reserve and 364.98 ha from the eco-sensitive zone of the reserve for widening and improvement of an existing road to a four-lane configuration.
The proposal includes construction of elevated road in three stretches of about 20 km, 10 km and 5 km which will act as a mitigation measure to facilitate movement of animals, the minutes of the standing committee’s meeting dated February 28 said.
But environmental activists are not convinced. The standing committee’s clearance to the road on February 22 came days ahead of the Supreme Court order reprimanding the Uttarakhand government for allowing illegal constructions and felling of trees in the Corbett tiger reserve.
SC in its order on Wednesday gave a conditional nod for the Pakhro tiger safari at Jim Corbett tiger reserve limiting only injured, rescued or orphaned cubs in the wild to be kept there but also ordered the constitution of an expert committee to look into whether tiger safaris can be permitted in buffer or fringe areas of national parks in the country.The bench said: “This is a classic case to show how the public trust doctrine has been thrown into the dustbin. It shows how nexus between politicians and bureaucrats led to heavy damage to the environment.”
The widening of the road stretch in Kaziranga tiger reserve from Kaliabor to Numaligarh section has been approved with the standing committee specifying 34 conditions including that National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) shall not carry out any construction activities on the animal corridors during flood season (June to September); that the height of the flyovers should not be less than nine meters at any point of the horizontal portion of the flyover except t where they descend; that there be minimal tree felling ; that no construction activities be carried out between the sunset and sunrise within the protected area as well as animal corridors; and that a mitigation and wildlife conservation plan be submitted within two months.
SP Yadav, member secretary, NTCA said during the meeting, as per the minutes, the road passes along the periphery of Kaziranga Tiger Reserve and is a very important road. “The mitigation measures suggested in the proposal would be state of the art and would be one of the best examples in the world.”
Sandeep Kumar, principal chief conservator of forests, Assam said during the meeting that the proposal has been made for mitigation measures with complete elevation of road for three stretches of 20 km, 10 km and 5 km. “The purpose of the project is to ensure 24 x 7 movement of animals across the road. The proposal is a mitigation plan in itself. Lot of research has gone into this mitigation plan with WII (Wildlife Institute of India) and NTCA on board. There are 11 corridors identified in the area and to facilitate the animal movement, the road would be elevated in three stretches,” the minutes of the standing committee meeting dated February 28 states.
“Now the question is how only an elevated road would ensure 24 x 7 movement of animals across the road if the villages / construction/ Resorts / boundary walls etc on the corridor are not completely removed? The obstruction to animals on the corridor are anyway going to be there. Agricultural land in the area is being converted to non agricultural rapidly and each passing day new 5 star hotels and resorts are coming up in the close vicinity of the park,” said RTI activist Rohit Choudhury.
The standing committee has also considered other proposals in tiger reserves. It has recommended a proposal for use of 40.86 ha of forest land from tiger corridor connecting Nagarjuna Sagar Tiger Reserve (NSTR) and Sri Venkateswara National Park for development of expressways, economic corridors and inter corridors under Bharatmala Pariyojana Phase- II: Bengaluru- Kadapa- Vijayawada Economic Corridor in Andhra Pradesh. SP Yadav said during the meeting that the project is of Bharatmala Pariyojana and the mitigation measures that have been suggested appear to be adequate and therefore the proposal may be recommended. The committee has recommended various conditions to mitigate impacts.
The standing committee also discussed implementation of eco-sensitive zones around national parks and sanctuaries. The notification of an ESZ contains various provisions but none of them are implemented on the ground which includes preparation of a zonal master plan for the area.
Members highlighted the case of construction of a highway in the ESZ of Velavadar National Park. Every year, several blackbucks die due to accidents here. The Standing Committee decided that the environment ministry shall take opinions and suggestions from the State/UTs on the landscape level conservation planning, matters related to implementation of provisions contained in the ESZ notifications and human-wildlife conflict issues in future NBWL meetings.
“The minutes reveal that, with the exception of some mobile towers in the core areas of 2 Tiger Reserves, all other projects for roads, transmission lines, and infrastructure are recommended for approval, several of which involves core areas of Tiger Reserve. Even proposals like medical college are approved in the eco-sensitive zones of Sariska Tiger Reserve, which not being a site-specific activity could have been avoided. What is worrisome is that the minutes of minutes lack any details of the discussion among the Standing Committee members, and only provides the chronology of the recommendations by other authorities and conditions prescribed by the Standing Committee members. Consequently, it is difficult to even term them as ‘minutes of meeting’ and to discern whether there have been actually any deliberations at all by the Standing Committee,” said Debadityo Sinha, Lead- Climate & Ecosystems, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.
“For the sake of transparency and public accountability, the deliberations of each members of the Standing Committee should be recorded in detail, and possibly video recordings should be made available,” she added.