Published on March 3, 2006
HYDERABAD: Crossing a major hurdle, the multi-purpose Indira Sagar (Polavaram) Project has obtained the clearance of the State Board for Wildlife. The relevant file is now with the National Board for Wildlife for its approval. Subsequently, it will be submitted to the Central Government.
The Indira Sagar will submerge 3,267 hectares of forest land, including 187.29 hectares of the Papikondalu wildlife sanctuary, besides affecting more than two lakh tribals.
Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy, who is the chairman of the State Board for Wildlife, convened a meeting a few weeks ago, which was attended by representatives of the World Wildlife (India), forest conservationists and senior officials from Forest, Irrigation and Revenue departments.
The project was cleared by the Board after the State Government agreed to abide by certain conditions.
One major condition is that the Irrigation Department should ensure that the labour working in the project will not use firewood from the nearby forest either for building huts or for cooking. They should be supplied cooking gas with stoves by the contractors.
“Since a major portion of the work is being done by machines, fewer workers will be used,” officials of the Forest department told this website's newspaper.
Another condition is that the net sanctuary area lost should be suitably compensated by adding an equal portion from the adjacent high forest area, which is considered to be a better habitat for wildlife.
The chief wildlife warden has been asked to submit proposals to the Central Government for notifying 187.29 hectares of adjacent forest area for the purpose.
Other conditions agreed upon relate to registering and recognising the rights of resident tribal communities and implementing the Centrally-sponsored Environment Development Committee (EDC) schemes for them, payment of Rs 195 crore towards net present value of the forest produce.
No comments:
Post a Comment