Assam asks PSU to demolish wall built on elephant corridor

The Assam state government has asked Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NFL), a public sector company, to demolish a wall that it had built on an elephant corridor, which posed a threat to the movement of pachyderms, near the Kaziranga National Park.

Updated on: Apr 25, 2017, 07:41:18 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Assam state government has asked Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NFL), a public sector company, to demolish a wall that it had built on an elephant corridor, which posed a threat to the movement of pachyderms, near the Kaziranga National Park.

NFL has said that before constructing the wall adequate measures were taken to ensure the surrounding environment was not disturbed. (HT Photo)

A calf had died in May this year due to the wall, which was built in 2011 on a hill close to the Deopahar reserve forest in Golaghat and the Kaziranga National Park.

The company said the wall was erected to secure a residential complex for the refinery workers who lived in the area. It added that the land was allocated to it by the Assam government.

Four years after the wall was built, the state forest department raised a red flag and said the allocation of land was done in violation of the Forest Conservation Act that empowers only the Centre to allow the diversion of forest land for non-forestry purposes.

“The land acquired by NFL is in clear violation of the established laws, rules and conditions. Further, the areas in question were serving as a critical wildlife corridors and part of a large ecosystem and catchment. The allotment of the land and subsequent construction of the boundary wall has spelled disaster to natural system,” said divisional forest officer, in a letter to the area deputy commissioner.

In response, NFL said that while constructing the wall adequate measures were taken to ensure the surrounding environment was not disturbed and that the township was developed after requisite permission was sought from the state forest department.

In his letter, the Golaghat forest officer also raised questions about the conduct of his own department with regard to this case.

The issue has now reached the National Green Tribunal, where an appeal has been filed accusing the NFL of destroying the local elephant habitat. The tribunal has sought replies from both NFL and the state on the charge.

The growing man-animal conflict has threatened elephants, and experts have said most of the conflict arises from increasing human habitations along wildlife corridors.

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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