Alleging anomalies in the construction of retaining wall along the Song River in Gohri range of Rajaji National Park, wildlife activists here threatened to approach the Supreme Court’s central empowered committee in the coming days on this issue.
Meanwhile, the national park officials claimed that all the objections raised against the construction have been redressed to facilitate construction of the retaining wall without which the Gohri Mafi village would face a serious flood threat in the monsoon.
An activist wishing anonymity said that the construction of the 1.8 km retaining wall along the Song will disrupt the movement of tigers and elephants.“The work proposal should be submitted to the National Board of Wildlife and executed according to Rajaji’s wildlife management plan,” he said.
However, the Rajaji field director SP Subudhi said that the principal chief conservator of forests (Wildlife) and chief wildlife warden SS Sharma who is also the acting PCCF had granted conditional approval for resuming the construction work following a report submitted by department officials. Sharma has directed that measures to be taken to prevent violation of guidelines.
“A 525 metres long retaining wall was built on this river in 1993-94 and the present wall is being constructed on two sides of this existing wall following allocation of Rs three crore by the Government of India to the Irrigation Department for flood protection work. We studied the impact of the wall constructed in the 90s and found that it had also facilitated natural plantation along the banks.
The chief wildlife warden is authorised to permit this work under the Wildlife Protection Act. We found that two sites are used by elephants to cross the river into the jungles so 18 metre ramps will be constructed at these sites so that elephant herds can cross over to the jungle.
Regarding the need for submitting the work proposal to the National Board for Wildlife, it is not required in this work as the CWW is within his jurisdiction to grant approval to the work. However, if this is challenged in the CEC and the SC orders us to stop this work, we will act as directed by the Apex court,” he said.