The Chhattisgarh government first shrank a proposed elephant reserve then delayed notifying it and shelved it quietly to clear the way for coal mining in a virgin forest.
Documents show that with the prime minister creating a ministerial committee to resolve the coal vs forest tussle over No Go zones, the trajectory of this aborted elephant reserve holds important insights, particularly, since it falls in Hasdeo Arand, a contentious No Go area for miners.
In a rare burst of unity in March, 2005, the Chhattisgarh assembly passed a unanimous resolution seeking Central approval for two elephant reserves to halt the growing man-animal conflicts caused by elephants from neighboring Orissa and Jharkhand. One of them was the Lemru reserve in Korba district.
A letter from the state government to the Centre in 2005said that “The people of the state cannot sustain the pressure of such a large number of elephants for long. Urgent steps are needed.”
On October 5th 2007, the ministry of environment and forests gave its consent to two elephant reserves Lemru in Korba (450 square kilometers) and Badalkhol-Tamarpingla in Jashpur and Sarguja (1048 square kilometers).
When it did not hear back from the state government for a year, it sent a reminder. The letter said that “The ministry has been providing assistance to the state under Project Elephant to the tune of INR 7 million to INR 8 million in anticipation of the declaration of the reserves. It is therefore requested to urgently notify the same.”
There was still no response. Concerned at the escalating delay, a Korba based environmental NGO, Sarthak, petitioned the central empowered committee asking it to direct Chhattisgarh to expedite notification of the reserves. The CEC's July 2009 notice to the state government was ignored. In August 2010, MoEF released Gajah, the report of the elephant task force, which listed the two reserves of Chhattisgarh, although with a rider: "Approved by Govt of India, not yet notified by the state.''
As it now emerges, this assumption was wrong. The state government had quietly struck Lemru off the list, as revealed in internal correspondence of the state forest department.
In a letter of July 20, 2009, Kaushalendra Singh state forest secretary, informed the chief conservator that the government would continue work on Badalkhol, Samersot and TamarPingla reserves. No other reserve would be made at any other location.
Clues to why the state let the reserve die can be found in an exchange of letters between the government and the state unit of Confederation of Indian Industry.
On 5 February 2008, CII state chief wrote to the forest department, the area in and around the (elephant) sanctuary has been established to be coal bearing. The proposed sanctuary, if finalized, will block at least 40 million tonne per annum of coal production.
The letter gave details of coal blocks that had been allocated, requesting the forest department to shift the sanctuary to another location.
(Sourced from Times of India)
