However, barring Kerala,
none of the States has responded to the Ministry of Environment and
Forests (MoEF), which, according to some environmentalists, betrays more
than just bureaucratic inefficiency.
MoEF letter
The
MoEF letter was sent out two months ago asking States to corroborate at
the village-level, the findings of the Kasturirangan committee report
(which had relied largely on satellite imagery).
The
Kasturirangan report last year had identified 59,940 sq.km (37 p.c.) of
the Western Ghats as ESA: regions where activities such as mining and
thermal plants should be banned.
Not formed panels
Karnataka,
which has the largest share of the Western Ghats identified as ESA, has
not even formed the committees that will conduct surveys at
district-level, according to sources in the State’s Environment
Department.
As for Goa, the Chief Minister has
written to the MoEF asking for more time citing the “rainy season” for
their inability to conduct the exercise, said Joint Secretary MoEF, Ajay
Tyagi.
Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu have not yet submitted their reports, he added.
According
to environmentalist Madhav Gadgil, “States are deliberately avoiding
the exercise of ground-truthing because it will not serve vested
interests.”
Prof. Gadgil chaired the expert panel
that authored the 2012 report on Western Ghats ESA, which the government
rejected in favour of the Kasturirangan report in 2013. “This just
makes it clear that vested interests dominate State governments as much
as they do the Union government,” he alleged.
The
concept of ESAs in the Western Ghats has been a contentious one. Kerala,
for instance, had expressed its objections to the Kasturirangan
committee recommendations that brought 13,108 sq.km under ESA. In its
draft notification of March 10, MoEF reduced the geographical area of
ESA in Kerala to 9,993.7 sq.km.
The draft notification identifies 56,825 sq.km as ESA in total, with Karnataka accounting for 20,668 sq.km.
In
its response to the draft notification, Karnataka agreed to ban mining
in ESA, but not quarrying or sand extraction as “a total ban will affect
local development and livelihoods very adversely”. The State also
called for a reduction in the extent of ESA.
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