Himanta defends move to limit eco-sensitive zone around Kaziranga to 1 km

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Monday, August 17 defended his government’s move to approach the Centre for notifying a one-km radius around the Kaziranga National Park as an eco-sensitive zone.

He maintained that the government was well within the Supreme Court’s directives in this regard and said that notifying up to a 10 kms radius as an eco-sensitive zone, as demanded by several opposition parties, will make survival for the locals untenable.

“If the eco-sensitive zone is till Bokakhat or Kaliabor, how will the people survive? The local people themselves have a case before the Supreme Court against any such notification,” Sarma said at a press conference, when asked about an ongoing controversy over demarking of an eco-sensitive zone around the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

He claimed that the indigenous Mising community and even MLA Akhil Gogoi have been resisting notifying a wider eco-sensitive zone area.

“Local people have to run businesses to survive. Even the Numaligarh Refinery will have to be closed down if 10 kms around Kaziranga is notified,” he said.

He also cited a Supreme Court judgment, which puts the eco-sensitive zone at a 1 to 3 kms radius, about which he had mentioned earlier, leading to the row over demarcating the protected area around the Park.

The government’s decision to ask the Centre to notify a one-km eco-sensitive zone around the Park a few days ago to allow building and other activities had drawn criticism from opposition and a section of people, who claimed that it would hurt the ecosystem.