Story/place-Nagpur.
Sep 4, 2010
NAGPUR: The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) will have to revise the report submitted to mitigate damage to wildlife and corridor for four-laning of NH-6 in 80 km patch in Bhandara and Gondia forest divisions.
According to sources, wildlife officials have expressed reservations on the report submitted to the forest department on August 17 by NHAI. The report was prepared by two consultants รข€" RN Indurkar, former PCCF for wildlife and SS Deshpande, retired ACF.
On Friday evening, Naresh Wadetwar, project director of NHAI and VP Brahmankar, director (technical), gave a presentation before wildlife officials on the report submitted by the experts. CCF Nandkishore, who was appointed by the Centrally Empowered Committee (CEC) to inspect the four-laning work, CCF (wildlife) AK Saxena, CCF (territorial) Krishna Mohan and ACF Kishore Mishrikotkar were present.
Saxena refused to go into the details and said things will be cleared only after site visit to be conducted soon. Nandkishore said, "We gave our remarks on the report and it will subsequently come in the minutes of the meeting."
It is learnt that the wildlife officials are not happy with the report. They feel that the mitigative measures suggested by the experts are insufficient and don`t match with what had been suggested by the CCF (wildlife) in his report submitted to the CEC on August 17, 2009.
Although the NHAI has been recommended to construct eight underpasses of 10 feet height and 20 feet width in every two km forest patch in vulnerable areas, sources said there is basic defect in the underpasses and forest officials feel same size underpasses cannot be a prescription on all the patches. It should be site-specific.
Sources said officials are annoyed with the report as there is no commitment about running expenses on perpetuity maintenance of fencing, water conservation and other mitigative measures recommended in the report for wildlife. The NHAI will bear one-time cost but there is no mention about continuous funds to secure wildlife important stretches where mitigation will be done.
Wadetwar said it was just a presentation as officials wanted to know how things will be. "At this juncture, even I don`t know what the officials have in mind. The report has been prepared by experts suggested by the forest officials," Wadetwar said.
Nandkishore, in his report to the CEC, had suggested minimum 10-13 underpasses for wildlife i.e. 2 to 3 between Sirpur-Nawatola; Maramjob-Duggipar; Duggipar-Bamhni and 1 to 2 between Soundad-Sendurwafa and Mundipar-Sakoli. However, the NHAI experts have recommended only one underpass in each of these patches.
source-timesofindia.indiatimes.com
sourced by jimsjungleretreat.com
No comments:
Post a Comment