Nagpur: The eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) monitoring committee of Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) headed by the Chandrapur district collector on Thursday rejected permission to two resorts which were just 350 metres away from the core boundary.
As per the MoEFCC guidelines, construction of resorts is prohibited within one kilometre from the park’s boundary. The 1,346.61 sqkm (including buffer) ESZ of Tadoba was notified on September 11, 2019, with the extent of 3km-16km.
Prior to the notification of the ESZ, over the years several resorts managed to come up very close to TATR from all sides by blocking the tiger corridors. The resort owners managed to get NOCs from the town planning department and constructed big properties by spending crores of rupees.
However, this is for the first time that after the notification of the Tadoba ESZ was issued, permission to construct two resorts has been rejected. Thursday’s meeting was called to discuss preparation of a zonal master plan (ZMP), which is mandatory as per the Supreme Court directions.
Deputy director (buffer) G Guruprasad, who is also member-secretary of the monitoring committee, said three proposals were forwarded by the town planning department to the committee. Out of these, permission to two resorts near Kolara were rejected. These resorts by Chandrapur businessmen were coming up on 5.18 hectares and 4 hectares of land. One of the resorts had already started construction.
“One more proposal was for a ginning mill in the buffer zone, 6km away from the Tadoba core boundary. The unit is being set up by locals under the ministry of micro, small & medium enterprises (MSME). As the units were not detrimental, we cleared them,” said Guruprasad.
TATR has very high flora and fauna diversity and it supports a large number of wild animals and birds. A large number of resorts have already blocked tiger corridors from all sides.
Bandu Dhotre, one of the members of the committee, said, “The purpose of the meeting was to review the progress of the zonal master plan (ZMP), which is mandatory as per MoEFCC to regulate developmental activities in the region in such a way that it ensures environmental and ecological protection of the entire endangered area.”
Nowhere in the state, a ZMP for wildlife sanctuaries and tiger reserves has been prepared even after notification of the ESZ four years ago. Dhotre said he had raised this issue in the state wildlife board meeting chaired by chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on August 7, 2020.