GUWAHATI: The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has asked Assam’s Chief Secretary to provide details of officers who let polling stations, schools, and other construction activities in a wildlife sanctuary and a reserve forest in gross violation of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980.
In an affidavit filed in April, the State government said several schools, a tea garden, a 5-km road, and wells were found to have been built in the Sonai Rupai Wildlife Sanctuary and the adjoining Charduar Reserve forest apart from polling stations under the Dhekiajuli, Rangapara, and Sootea Assembly constituencies.
The sanctuary – its official area is 220 sq. km – and the reserve forest are in northern-central Assam’s Sonitpur district. The Assembly segments are under the Sonitpur Lok Sabha constituency where elections were held in the first phase on April 19.
Seeking a response from the State government, the NGT said in its order: “The affidavit must also explain the inaction of the Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (PCCF) under whose very nose such illegal activities were allowed to go on since 2017.”
The order was passed on May 2 by the NGT’s judicial member, Justice B. Amit Sthalekar and expert member Arun Kumar Verma. It was based on an application by Dilip Nath, a member of an environment group called Aranya Suraksha Samiti, in 2023 alleging large-scale construction activities by the government and encroachers of the protected areas.
Outlining the construction activities in its April affidavit, the Assam government said the local forest authorities registered a first information report (FIR) against the management committees of the schools built inside the protected areas.
Government projects
The government also said the State’s Irrigation Department was constructing a sluice gate on the Siloni River inside the reserve forest while an individual created a tea garden inside the same reserve forest in violation of the rules. An FIR, the affidavit added, was registered against a contractor for constructing a 5 km road inside the wildlife sanctuary where the polling stations were set.
Ring wells were also installed by the State’s Public Health Engineering Department in the wildlife sanctuary, the affidavit said.
In its order, the NGT noted that the affidavit carried details of the illegal activities within the protected areas but failed to state “for reasons best known to the Joint Secretary who filed the affidavit” whether any action to remove the encroachments and illegal constructions have been taken to restore the forest.
The NGT also directed the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change to file a counter-affidavit within four weeks underlining the action taken against officers who allowed the illegal constructions and steps taken to remove them.
On April 25, the Environment Ministry sought a report from the Assam government regarding the alleged diversion of forest land along the Assam-Nagaland border. M.K. Yadava, the former PCCF who is now the State’s Special Chief Secretary (Forest), had in 2022 approved the construction of an Assam police commando battalion camp within Geleky Reserve Forest in eastern Assam’s Sivasagar district.
Earlier, the Environment Ministry had sounded Mr. Yadava for allegedly allowing the diversion of 44 hectares of forest land along the Assam-Mizoram border for the construction of another commando battalion unit.
