Uttarakhand, home to close to 340 tigers, does not seem to bother about rules when it comes to constructing a road bang inside a national park famous as the home of tigers and elephants.
Long after work had begun on the 11.5-km Laldhang-Chillarkhal Motor Road inside the Rajaji Tiger Reserve, the Supreme Court stayed its construction on Friday.
This road was to provide connectivity to 38 villages near Kotdwar in the state's Pauri Garhwal district.
The court order came on an expert team's finding that the road traversed a critical tiger corridor between Rajaji and Corbett Tiger Reserves.
While approvals from the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and National Board for Wildlife (NBW) are mandatory before beginning any work in wildlife and ecologically sensitive zones, the state bothered to inform none.
Taking note of these omissions, an expert body called the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) which is assisting the Supreme Court on wildlife and environment issues said in its report, "The Laldhang-Chillarkhal Motor Road in Rajaji Tiger Reserve must be stopped as it would irreversibly adversely impact the habitat and wildlife of the ecologically sensitive area."
The CEC is concerned about the unusually high tiger population in and around the two reserves. The 2014 Tiger Census pegs Uttarakhand as the state with the second highest tiger population in the country with a tiger count of 340. Of these, Corbett accounts for nearly 215 while Rajaji 16. The figure is expected to rise when the 2018 census result is out.
CEC chairman PV Jayakrishnan said in his report, "As per data of All India Tiger Estimation 2014, the area in question supports up to four tigers per 100 sq km and variable prey density."
Based on the inputs received from NTCA, the CEC learnt that no approval under the relevant provisions of Wildlife (Protection) Act and the Forest (Conservation) Act were taken.
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