Wall still blocks elephant corridor near Kaziranga despite SC order to bring it down

Despite the Supreme Court ordering a refinery in Assam to tear down a concrete wall near Kaziranga National Park in January this year, it continues to stand and block the movement of wild elephant along an important wildlife corridor in the state.

The 2.2-kilometre boundary wall was built in 2011 to allow state-run fossil fuel facility, Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL), to expand its operations into the Deopahar Reserve.

NRL was taken to court by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in August 2018, when the NRL refused. The Tribunal's been trying to have the wall demolished since 2016.

The refinery was compelled to take down a 289-metre stretch of the wall in March 2018 to free up the passage for elephants to move between Kaziranga and Deopahar, a path that the wall obstructs.

In their view, demolishing the entire wall was unnecessary.

By striking down the appeal made by the NRL to maintain the wall, SC judges said that "Elephants have first right on the forest," according to LiveLaw. "Elephants do not go to office in a designated route. We cannot encroach upon the elephant’s area."

After the Supreme Court order, a divisional forest officer Jayashree Naiding reportedly wrote a letter to the refinery, to which a general manager at NRL responded saying that a case regarding the area of land the wall stands on is still ongoing in the Guwahati High Court, according to a report in the Wire.

But as Naiding is quoted as saying, all previous and pending appeals regarding the wall were waived as part of the SC order passed on 18 January. She added the matter was now in the district commissioner – Dhiren Hazarika's hands.

Hazarika also dashed off a letter to the NRL, telling them to comply with the order, and that he was still new to the place and unfamiliar with the case, according to an NE Now report.

But with what little he knew, Hazarika reportedly called out NRL for concealing their stay order in the list of pending cases presented to the Supreme Court during the appeal proceedings.

Now, a month after the SC order was passed, the matter has now been escalated to the local administration and Supreme Court registrar. The most recent warning to the NRL comes as the last word on the matter, "In case no action is taken urgently to demolish the said boundary wall, then the undersigned will be constrained to take legal recourse as mandated by law against the Chief Secretary [and other officers of the district administration]."

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Jumbo conflict deepens

Goalpara: The man-elephant conflict in Goalpara district has worsened with six deaths and 10 injuries within the first five months this year.

A middle-aged man from Solmari Kalyanpur under Agia police station died in such an attack on Thursday.

Sushil Rabha, who went to cut bamboo behind his house, suddenly faced the jumbo devouring jackfruit from a tree in his neighbour's house. Though the man tried to escape under the cover of the bamboo bushes, the elephant chased and held him with its trunk and thrashed him on the ground.

Villagers then came together and tried to chase the elephant away and also informed the district forest office.

However, allegedly no forest personnel came to retrieve the body even several hours after the incident. Police arrived several hours later and retrieved the body and sent it for post mortem.

Residents of Kalyanpur village complained that the same elephant has caused large scale damage in the entire area under Agia police station.

"This particular animal does not move with its herd. Moreover, it moves fast and silently. We are petrified of the animal," a resident said.

According to forest department sources, a herd of 22 elephants has set up camp in the neighbouring Pancharatna Hill and occasionally visits adjacent areas like Makri, Solmari, Kalyanpur and Budhipara.

Reacting to Thursday's incident, divisional forest officer Acharya Goswami said most of the elephants moving around in Goalpara district have come down from Garo hills in Meghalaya but have failed to return to their original habitat as people in the border areas have blocked the elephant corridors.

"Men have not only encroached into forest areas but have also blocked the elephant corridors leading to maximum conflicts," Goswami said.

Sources alleged that it is the rampant felling of trees that makes these jumbos aggressive and they chase men whenever they find a chance.


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