The Supreme Court’s order in 2019 banning new construction on nine critical animal corridors of the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve continues to be flouted.
On January 30, the range forest officer of Kaziranga’s Western Range at Bagori wrote to his counterpart in the Salna Range, Nagaon, seeking necessary measures against the clearing of jungles and excavation with heavy machinery on the Kanchanjuri animal corridor.
Bibit Dehingia, the range officer, said the beat officer of Burapahar had seen some people excavating the corridor used by animals of Kaziranga during high floods to move to and from the hills of Karbi Anglong south of the park. The activity was in violation of the Supreme Court’s 2019 order, he pointed out.
This was just one instance of the encroachment of and construction on most of the nine animal corridors of Kaziranga, the park’s officials said.
“Areas are being added to the 1,300 sq. km park but it has become increasingly difficult to clear the animal corridors of man-made obstructions because many heavyweight politicians and businessmen are involved,” one of them said on condition of anonymity. Apart from numerous tracks, Kaziranga has nine notified animal corridors. Seven of these — Amguri, Bagori, Chirang, Deosur, Harmati, Hatidandi and Kanchanjuri — are in the Nagaon district while Haldibari and Panbari are in the adjoining Golaghat district.
The Supreme Court’s order had little or no impact on the Assam government. Based on a complaint by Assam-based environment activist Rohit Choudhury, the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) had in October 2021 directed the State government to take action against the encroachers and stop all construction activities on the animal corridors.
The CEC is a panel of experts that the Supreme Court had formed in 2002.
The Assam government sought three months from November 3, 2021, to take the necessary steps. The deadline expired in the first week of February.
