Expert panel to screen 17 projects near tiger reserves
An expert committee will decide the fate of 17 projects near tiger reserves — including seven in Transport Minister Kamal Nath’s constituency and a memorial for late Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S.R Reddy.
An expert committee will decide the fate of 17 projects near tiger reserves — including seven in Transport Minister Kamal Nath’s constituency and a memorial for late Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S.R Reddy.
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The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has asked former director of Project Tiger P.K. Sen and three others members of NCTA to conduct field inspections and consultations to evaluate the impact of these projects on the local tiger population.
“The month’s time given to Sen committee to submit the report is very less,” said Ajay Marathe, an activist opposing a mining project in Tadoba landscape, which falls in Kamal Nath’s constituency, Chhindwara. “The government seems to be in a tearing hurry.”
India’s tiger population has fallen to 1,411 in 2007 due to shrinking natural habitats. Despite that, governments of Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra have sought environment clearances for power and coal mining projects in tiger landscapes.
The Environment Ministry, refused to approve the projects and has asked NCTA to examine the projects falling in buffer zones and corridors of the tiger reserves. The NCTA has not put any adverse remarks against the seven projects in Chhindwara or Bandhavgarh.
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The only project over which NCTA has expressed reservations is “illegal construction of Smruthi Vanam in the memory of late CM” of Andhra YSR Reddy. “Proposed in the notified Gundla Brameswaram Wildlife Sanctuary, in violation of rules, procedures and prevailing Supreme Court orders,” NCTA said, in an order notifying the constitution of Sen committee.
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The only project over which NCTA has expressed reservations is “illegal construction of Smruthi Vanam in the memory of late CM” of Andhra YSR Reddy. “Proposed in the notified Gundla Brameswaram Wildlife Sanctuary, in violation of rules, procedures and prevailing Supreme Court orders,” NCTA said, in an order notifying the constitution of Sen committee.
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Sen, when contacted, said he was visiting the project sites.
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.
