The Supreme Court has accepted the recommendations of expert committee formed to suggests ways to balance the conservation and protection of the endangered Great Indian Bustard (GIB) bird population with the country's international commitments to promote renewable sources of energy.
The seven-member committee had representation from environment ministry and wild life experts while the union power ministry was represented by then joint secretary Lalit Bohra, a 1998 batch a 1998-batch Indian Railway Traffic Service officer currently serving as DRM Waltair division.
The committee had recommended to revise the priority area for conservation of GIB in Rajasthan to 14,013 sq kms up from 13,153 sq kms. Similarly the priority area in Gujarat has been revised from 500 sq kms to 740 sq kms allowing more areas for free movement of one of the heaviest flying birds in the world, which has rapidly dwindled to near extinction. One of the reasons for rapid reduction in birds population is collision with live transmission lines in the line of flight of these birds.
The committee also recommended for imposing restriction on future renewable energy projects within the Revised Priority Areas of Rajasthan as against the potential area of 78,580 sq kms in desert.
A bench of Justices P S Narasimha and A S Chandurkar has also accepted the recommendation of the committee, which stipulates to providing a power corridor of up to 5 km width, which will be at a distance of 5 km or more to the south of the southern-most enclosure of Desert National Park.
The court has directed immediate under grounding of 80 kms of 33 KV lines in Rajasthan and at the same time ordered mitigation of 33 kV lines in the revised Priority Area of Rajasthan. It has also directed rerouting of certain specific existing lines of 66kV and above in the revised Priority Area of Rajasthan.
“All the mitigation measures such as undergrounding, rerouting as suggested in the Committee Report should be started immediately and completed within two years from the date of our order,” the order stated.
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