There’s a storm brewing on the agenda of the upcoming meeting of Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) next week.
The Ministry of Environment & Forest (MoEF) panel has yet again been asked to look into diversion of large tracts of forest land for the contentious Tipaimukh hydroelectric project in the North East. In its previous meeting, the FAC had rejected the diversion of 27,777.50 hectares in Manipur. This time, the agenda is less ambitious — a diversion of 1,551.6 hectares forest land in Mizoram.
A total of 19 projects have been lined up for the meeting, scheduled to take place on August 13-14. Several of them would entitle controversial encro achment of natural habitats. A hydel power proposal in Arunachal Pradesh, in favour of M/s Tato Hydropower (P) ltd, for instance, seeks 313.88 hectares of forest land for construction of a 700-MW project on the Siyom River in the Aaalo forest division of West Siang district. According to documents, the area is rich in biodiversity, home to wildlife like the clouded leopard, musk deer, red panda, slow loris and Assamese macaques, among others.
Apart from this, two other projects from Odisha, calling for diversion about 630 hectares of forest land collectively for mining and transmission lines, respectively, are said to be part of elephant habitats. FAC must tread carefully on these projects, especially considering that Odisha has one of the highest incidences of man-elephant conflicts. The first of the two Odisha proposals involves 379.576 hectares in Angul, Arhamalik, Rairakhol, Sambalpur and Jharsuguda for construction of transmission lines by the Power Grid Corporation of India ltd. According to sources, the project passes across the Tal Kholgarh Elephant Corridor.
The second calls for diversion of 249.9685 hectares in Rebana Reserved Forest in respect of Daitari extension area, for mining, infrastructure and township development to OMC ltd, in Keonjhar district. According to experts, Rebana Reserve Forest is prime habitat for elephants. Considering the fragile situation in Odisha, such fragmentation of elephant corridors and habitats will only lead to further escalation of man-elephant conflicts. Outside of that State, yet another important project is lined up, which calls for diversion of 489.925 hectares of forest land for underground mining by SKS Ispat & Power in the Chhindwara forest division of Madhya Pradesh. The proposed area is in the vicinity of Pench National Park and Satpura Tiger Reserve. Voices are rising against indiscriminate handing over of ‘wildlife territory’ in the name of industry that has been leading to severe loss of habitat for several species.