JAIPUR: Rampant construction at the Ranthambore national park seemed to have irked tiger man, the late Fateh Singh Rathore. In a document prepared last year on "Issues and Challenges of Ranthambore" the former director of the park has highlighted unnecessary civil construction in the park as one of the major challenges in it.
Interestingly, his warnings had come much before the recent curbs on construction inside the park by the Central Empowered Committee ( CEC) of the Supreme Court on a petition by Belinda Wright, executive director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India.
In his document, Singh has pointed out the tendency of the forest department to built chowkis whereever there is a need to monitor the tiger or the forest.
Terming this as a new human interference, he wrote: "Forest guards use the same water sources for various requirements like bathing, washing clothes and drinking, which keeps animals away. In order to monitor the forest and tiger it is not required to build new guard posts each time, this can easily be done with the help of monitoring vehicles. The forest department admits due to the conflict with the villagers the guard posts on the periphery remain vacant. But this does not mean that the prime areas which are the central areas of the park be colonised by such choukies."
Singh also took exception to many roads being constructed as many trees had been cut down.
"The park has several roads; tourists use some of them and disturb the animals. Moreover, Ranthambore already has enough roads, hence there is no need for more," he wrote. In particular, he mentioned the road in the heart of the park at Nalghati and said, "uch unnecessary roads should be blocked and new construction should not be encouraged."
Fateh Singh had opposed the moves by the forest department in building annicuts and artificial water bodies. This time the CEC's objection was against those proposed to be build.
"There is a place called Sukhi Talai (dry pond) in Ranthambore, which gives fantastic tiger sightings, but in spite of the name there is water in this place until December. Today there are 50 - 60 such dry ponds created in Ranthambore by the forest department but with no water!" he wrote.
He had also warned of alternation in the habitat due to building of such waterbodies.
Most notable in his advice was to refrain setting up foundation stones in lieu of donations from various bodies. "This is a tiger reserve but it looks like a memorial now in many places!," he wrote.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jaipur/Rathore-opposed-rampant-construction-at-anthambore/articleshow/7731578.cms
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