The dismantling of the Kemmar-Kudremukh line began on April 17 this year after alternative power was provided to a few affected villages on the eastern edge of Kudremukh National park.
It’s being described as a “conservation swap”.
The deal is simple: the Karnataka government will dismantle a 25 km long power transmission line passing through Kudremukh National Park to compensate for the loss of an 8.3km long wildlife corridor in Chikamaglur district caused by another line.
The Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and the Karnataka Forest Department initiated this swap to restore the wildlife corridor disrupted by a 220 KVA power transmission line in Kudremukh. The line originally supported the mining operations of the Kudremukh Iron Ore Company (KIOCL) which was shut down by the Supreme Court in response to litigation by conservation groups. The move was initiated after an ecological analysis by experts.
MC Vinay Kumar, assistant director (conservation support and outreach), Wildlife Conservation Society-India (WCS-India), said that the Karnataka government had sought forest clearance from the FAC in early 2010 for permitting a power line to carry power from the Udupi Power Corporation’s Thermal Power Plant in Nandikur.
Since the proposed 400 KVA power line cut through an 8.3 km stretch of critical evergreen forest corridor in the Balur forests in Chikmagalur district, a field inspection of its ecological impacts was conducted by an FAC expert committee comprising Dr K Ullas Karanth, director of WCS-India and FAC member, and Dr AJT John Singh, former dean of the Dehradun-based Wildlife Institute of India (WII).
Due to delays caused by KIOCL, the recommendation was not followed initially. This was protested by wildlife groups, Wild Cat-C and Bhadra Wildlife Conservation Trust, who sough the FAC’s intervention. The latter intervened and took the violations seriously.
“Thanks to a proactive role played by the Karnataka Chief Secretary SV Ranganath and Forest Principal Secretary Kaushik Mukherjee, a senior forest officer rushed with an undertaking letter to the FAC meeting on October 12, 2011. The state government provided an undertaking saying that the existing line through Kudremukh would be dismantled before the other transmission line was commissioned,” said Vinay Kumar.
The dismantling of the Kemmar-Kudremukh line began on April 17 this year after alternative power was provided to a few affected villages on the eastern edge of the park.
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