New Western Ghats panel to look at proposals on ESAs under each stakeholder state

The Union environment ministry has created a new panel to examine controversies surrounding an eight-year-old draft proposal on the protection of the Western Ghats, against the “developmental aspirations” of the six states in the Ghat region that remained firm in their opposition of the Kasturirangan committee suggestions.

The new five-member panel, headed by former Director-General of Forests of India Sanjay Kumar, was to submit its report on May 30 but had asked for an extension as the work was not yet complete, ministry sources told DH.

The Kasturirangan Committee report had suggested converting 37 per cent area of Western Ghats as “ecologically sensitive areas”—which means a lot of projects and activities in the demarcated region would be termed eco-destructive and thus prohibited.

The new ESA panel comes 12 years after the Madhav Gadgil committee, and a decade after the K Kasturirangan Committee submitted their respective reports.

Both panels had suggested special measures for the protection of the “ecologically fragile” Western Ghats and its biodiversity, although the Kasturirangan committee report’s suggested ESA was substantially less than the Gadgil panel’s suggestions.

The environment ministry, based on the Kasturirangan committee report, had in 2014 published a draft notification identifying the ESAs and suggested measures for its protection.

The Western Ghat states—Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa and Gujarat—had earlier objected to the Kasturirangan committee report and the draft notification, arguing that its implementation would adversely impact their developmental needs.

This draft notification has already lapsed four times as the six stakeholder states have stringently opposed it, but the ministry has subsequently reissued it.

The current notification is valid till June 30.

“We have received all types of representations, including suggestions from the Bishops of Kerala. The new panel will examine all of them,” said an official on Tuesday.

Other members of the panel are Director of Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Dehradun; Director General of Geological Survey of India, and former professor at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, Raman Sukumar, who is India’s foremost expert on elephants. A senior ministry official from the eco-sensitive zone is the convenor of the panel.

The Sanjay Kumar panel has been tasked to examine the suggestions of state governments, keeping in view the fragility of the area—particularly due to the recent disasters—and engage in comprehensive discussions with government representatives in all the six states.

The panel will also deliberate on whether a village should be considered a unit while demarcating ESA, the demarcation of forest and non-forest areas, and the impact of excluding proposed revenue areas from the notification on the basis of the areas’ overall vulnerability.

In addition, the panel will examine the profile of activities—both prohibited and regulated—to address the needs of the local residents, and the mechanism of monitoring and managing the area proposed for inclusion in the ESA.

The committee, according to the ministry, would keep in mind the “conservation of pristine environment” against the “rights, needs and developmental aspirations of the areas.”

The Gadgil panel had described Western Ghats as an area of 1,29,037 sq km—nearly 75 per cent of which needs to be protected. The Kasturirangan panel, on the other hand, had put the total area for Western Ghats at 1,64280 sq km, out of which 37 per cent—representing an area of 59,940 sq km—was the ecologically sensitive area representing a continuous band of vegetation, which was to be saved at any cost.

The ministry in its notification declared 56,825 sq km area as ESA—the shortfall of 3,115 sq km of area was in Kerala—but none of the stakeholder states agreed with the two expert panels, or the ministry’s notification.