The Assam government has decided to build nine elephant corridors in the Kaziranga National Park (KNP) area.
The state government’s decision comes one-and-a-half months after the death of 18 wild elephants in Central Assam’s Nagaon district after being struck by a “massive lightning bolt”.
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As per reports, the decision was taken at a high-level meeting in Guwahati recently.
It was decided to create the nine elephant corridors for Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve (KNP & TR).
The meeting decided to constitute a committee to make an on-the-spot verification of the areas for delineation of nine animal corridors in the UNESCO world heritage site — KNP & TR.
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“The committee after making assessment will place its interim report after 15 days and the final report within another fortnight,” sources said.
“The meeting discussed threadbare about the proposed nine identified elephant corridors as well as the creation of eco-sensitive zones in KNP & TR to provide safe passage to the pachyderms and to ward off man-elephant conflicts,” added the sources.
The new additional areas of the park together with reserved forests will come under a single integrated entity.
An official statement said that the Supreme Court acting on an application by animal activist Rohit Choudhury, in April, 2019, had “restrained” all mining activities along the southern boundary of KNP & TR and in the entire catchment area of rivers and streams and rivulets originating in Karbi Anglong hill ranges and flowing into the park.
“No new construction shall be permitted on private lands which form part of the nine identified animal corridors,” the apex court order stated.
The statement said that the Environment and Forest department had submitted an affidavit to the Supreme Court on the nine identified elephant corridors with geo coordinates.