Projects get a boost as govt shrinks wildlife panel’s ambit
The newly constituted wildlife committee’s jurisdiction to recommend projects in and around national parks and sanctuaries has been reduced just before the environment ministry is scheduled to announce eco-sensitive zones in the Western Ghats and some other states.
The newly constituted wildlife committee’s jurisdiction to recommend projects in and around national parks and sanctuaries has been reduced just before the environment ministry is scheduled to announce eco-sensitive zones in the Western Ghats and some other states.
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In a key change, the ministry has decided that the committee will examine the projects in 650 national parks, sanctuaries and the eco-sensitive areas (ESA) around them. Earlier, the committee used to recommend projects within 10 km of the national parks and sanctuaries irrespective of the boundary of the ESA.
The ministry quoted the 2006 Supreme Court order to say the distance of 10 km will get substituted by the boundary limits of the zones for the projects to be considered by the standing committee of the National Board for Wildlife to examine projects close to wildlife areas.
This change can speed up project development around national parks and sanctuaries as the average distance the ESA notified around wildlife areas is less than 2 km and in some cases, it is only up to 500 metres.
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Goa and Sikkim have asked the environment ministry not to notify the ESA of more than a kilometre around wildlife areas in their states. The ministry has obliged Sikkim by issuing a draft notification of ESA for eight wildlife areas with an average zone of 100 meters. Officials say draft rules prescribing minimal ESA for Goa would be notified soon.
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Goa and Sikkim have asked the environment ministry not to notify the ESA of more than a kilometre around wildlife areas in their states. The ministry has obliged Sikkim by issuing a draft notification of ESA for eight wildlife areas with an average zone of 100 meters. Officials say draft rules prescribing minimal ESA for Goa would be notified soon.
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The six states covered by the Western Ghats have also opposed ESA covering huge tracks of land around wildlife areas as suggested by the Kasturirangan Committee.
The committee had recommend one-third of the Western Ghats be declared as ESA but its recommendation was kept in abeyance following protests. Now, the National Green Tribunal has asked the ministry to notify ESA in Western Ghats based on the panel’s recommendations.
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The ministry officials admit that majority of the states were not willing to notify 10 km as suggested by the SC. The ministry has to notify ESA after taking the state into confidence as the latter has to enforce the green zone conditions.
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.
