Nagpur: The Nagpur bench of Bombay high court has sought a report on large-scale digging for extraction of murrum and felling of trees in and around Katepurna wildlife sanctuary in Akola and Washim districts.
TOI had published a series of stories since September 29, exposing illegal extraction of murrum and subsequent felling of trees in the eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) of Katepurna by a Pune-based road contractor. The lid over the scam was blown by environment activist from Akola Sheikh Mohammed Sheikh Makbul aka Munna by filing a complaint on August 23.
Munna alleged that over 600-800 truckload of murrum was extracted from survey number 45 in Waghgad on the south-eastern part of the sanctuary in July-August. Pillars of the sanctuary boundary were also uprooted during digging by the contractor.
As all the three revenue, wildlife, and territorial department officials did not take cognisance of Munna’s complaint and were buck-passing, he was forced to seek intervention of the high court and wrote to the office of Justice Sunil Shukre, who is also the guardian judge of Amravati, to treat his complaint as public interest litigation (PIL).
The complaint was placed before Justice Shukre, who has sought a report from APCCF & Melghat field director MS Reddy. This has been communicated to field director on November 23 by Anju Shende, the high court registrar (administration).
Reddy has written to Akola collector Jitendra Papalkar seeking his report on the violations. Talking to TOI, Papalkar said, “Our inquiry is over and I’ve already submitted a report to additional government pleader (AGP). It is true that separate permissions to extract 600 brass of murrum and gravel were granted by Barshitakli tahsildar Gajanan Hanmad to a road construction company Swami Samarth Engineering, Pune. The area falls in the ESZ.”
“I agree that the tehsildar should not have granted permission to extract murrum in ESZ, but the wildlife and territorial officials should have taken cognisance and stopped the activity. We’ve also put the private contractor on notice and those involved will certainly face action,” said Papalkar.
Prima facie there were allegations by the complainant that the road from where murrum was transported was through the sanctuary. However, the divisional forest officer (DFO) MN Khairnar in his report to Akola deputy conservator denied. “The disputed road doesn’t belong to wildlife,” he said.
The apex court directions in such cases are very clear. The final ESZ notification of Katepurna (73sqkm) is yet to be out. In view of ESZ delay, the default area of 10km is treated as ESZ.
Munna says both wildlife and territorial officials turned a blind eye to the illegal activity. “I filed the complaint on August 23, but physical investigations started two months later,” he adds.
The two big hillocks in Waghgad were pulled down by the private contractor. The ACF (wildlife) VG Sable has himself admitted the extraction was done hardly 50 metres away from the sanctuary.