Guwahati: A government notification meant to formally protect nine wildlife corridors linking Kaziranga National Park to the Karbi Anglong hills lists details of only eight — and the missing one, Panbari, borders a tea estate now controlled by a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited.
The gap is drawing scrutiny four years after the notification was issued, with no official explanation on record.
A committee’s findings, only partly notified
The nine corridors — Panbari, Haldhibari, Bagori, Harmati, Kanchanjuri, Hatidandi, Deosur, Chirang and Amguri — were identified by a committee the Assam government constituted under Order No. FRS.142/2018/474, dated May 4, 2019. The committee submitted its report on August 28, 2019.
Nearly three years later, on April 1, 2022, the Assam government issued Gazette Notification No. FRW.7/2022/Pt.V/01, titled “9 (nine) animal corridors connecting Karbi Anglong Hills and Kaziranga National Park.” Its opening section explicitly references all nine. But the body of the notification, as it currently appears on the Environment, Forest and Climate Change Department’s website, details only eight. Panbari is absent.
A tea estate under new ownership
The omission has drawn attention because the Panbari corridor runs through Methoni Tea Estate, which changed hands in 2022 — the same year the notification was gazetted. Methoni was acquired from Kolkata-based The Methoni Tea Company Limited by RCP Solutions and Services Private Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited. Assam regulatory records show RCP Solutions and Services associated with the estate from 2022.
The overlap in timing has prompted questions about whether Panbari was deliberately excluded from the public notification to shield activity on the estate from regulatory restrictions tied to corridor status.
No evidence has surfaced to confirm this, and the Assam government has issued no statement addressing why the corridor was left out or whether the omission was intentional. Absent documentary evidence, the connection remains speculative.
What is harder to explain, critics say, is the silence since. If the exclusion was a clerical error, it has gone uncorrected for more than four years.
Reports of rare earth deposits nearby
Separately, reports of rare earth element (REE) deposits in the Panbari-Geleki area of Karbi Anglong — close to Kaziranga — have added another layer of speculation about the corridor’s omission. As with the tea estate connection, this remains unverified and would require independent confirmation.
A corridor animals use daily
Beyond the paperwork, conservationists say Panbari remains an active, heavily used wildlife passage — not a symbolic line on a map.
“Elephants cross the highway through this corridor, move towards paddy fields in search of food and return to the forest in the early morning,” said a local conservationist who spoke on condition of anonymity, describing a pattern used by elephant herds for generations.
The corridor’s importance peaks during the monsoon, the conservationist said, when floodwaters submerge large parts of Kaziranga and deer and other animals cross the highway toward the Karbi Anglong hills in greater numbers to escape the inundation.
Legal backdrop
The unresolved status of Panbari — and the fact that not all nine identified corridors have been formally notified — sits against the backdrop of Supreme Court directions requiring protection of wildlife corridors and restricting activity that obstructs or degrades such linkages.
The core question remains unanswered: why does a notification that explicitly declares nine corridors detail only eight, and why has Panbari stayed off the government’s official record for more than four years?