The Public Works Department’s (PWD) proposal to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to widen the existing road that cuts across the Kudremukh National Park (KNP) has irked Forest officials and environmentalists as the area is considered a promising tiger habitat.
Forest officials say the proposal violates the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and various judgments of the Supreme Court. The KNP is home to tigers, endangered lion-tailed macaques, leopards, elephants, gaurs, mouse deer, king cobras, python and several endemic species of frogs.
“The proposal for permission to widen the three-and-a-half-metre-wide road to seven metres was sent three months ago to the NHAI. Almost 8,000 vehicles ply on this road every day, so widening is required,” a PWD (NH Wing) official told Deccan Herald on condition of anonymity. According to the official, the PWD maintains a 21-km-long road inside the KNP, which passes through Kerekatte and Karkala wildlife ranges. Walls also are being built in some critical areas along the sides of the road.
The official added that permission from the Forest department or any other department was not taken because the walls were being built in patches on road margins.
But the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife), Vinay Luthra, said that permission was given only to maintain the existing road which was 40-50 years old. He added he was not aware of any wall construction and asserted that no permission had been given. “We will not give permission for road-widening and building walls. They will have to approach the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), as it is a national park and a tiger habitat.”
Noted tiger scientist Ullas Karanth said the Supreme Court had banned mining and other activities in the forest patch. No road works should be done as it is the biggest rainforest area of the Western Ghats. An alternative route through Charamadi was proposed and the same has been ignored, he added.
Praveen Bhargav, a trustee of the conservation advocacy organisation Wildlife First, said, “The visionary decision of the earlier NDA government headed by A B Vajpayee to ‘... plan roads, highways, expressways in such a manner that all national parks and sanctuaries are bypassed and the integrity of the protected areas is maintained...’, contained in the National Wildlife Action Plan 2002-2016, must be implemented.
The NHAI does not even have the legal right of way for a stretch of road between SK Border and Tanikodu inside the KNP. Any road work inside Kudremukh without prior approval of the Supreme Court will be tantamount to a contempt of the orders in IA 548/2000 in WP 202/1995.”
Project stalled for over a decade
The NHAI and the Deputy Inspector General of Forests, MoEF, stalled this project in 2001-02 when it emerged the former did not have the Supreme Court’s permission to begin land acquisition outside the KNP to turn NH 13 into a four-lane road. The Ministry of Surface Transport should plan roads such that all national parks and sanctuaries are bypassed and wildlife corridors avoided, the Standing Committee of National Board for Wildlife stated in its action plan 2002-16.
Wildlife First had written to the then MoEF minister Jairam Ramesh, highlighting that making NH 13 a four-lane road will severely fragment one of the last bastions of the critically endangered lion-tailed macaque due to loss of canopy connectivity.
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