WII report wants NPCIL colony site shifted

Sushil Manav

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Tribune News Service

Fatehabad, July 19

The population of black bucks is decreasing in the district’s Bishnoi-dominated villages, till now considered a safe habitat for them due to the community’s penchant for protecting wildlife.

According to a recent report by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun, black bucks have been dying year after year — 34 died in 2014 alone in the district. It said 70 per cent of black buck deaths were because of attack by dogs and 20 per cent as a result of road accidents.

Most of the deaths have occurred on land acquired by the Nuclear Power Corporation of Indian Limited (NPCIL) at Badopal village for a residential colony.

Fatehabad and some surrounding Bishnoi-dominated villages of Hisar have a population of 458 black bucks, out of which 146 were found on the NPCIL’s colony land by survey teams of the WII.

The WII submitted its final report “Black bucks and its habitat in and adjoining landscape of NPCIL colony site” to the Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) recently.

The NPCIL is coming up with a 2,800-MW nuclear power project at Gorakhpur, for which it has acquired 1,500 acres, including 187 acres in Badopal for setting up a colony for its employees. The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has requested the WII to prepare a conservation plan for animals.

A team from WII first visited the site in 2013 and submitted its report in August 2013, in which it recommended the colony site being natural habitat of black bucks should be developed as a conservation reserve for them and the NPCIL should find some other site for its colony.

The WII report said the district administration should play a proactive role to mitigate problem of stray dogs, farmers be discouraged from fencing their fields with razor blade wires and sufficient staff be posted in the Wildlife Department in Fatehabad.

Kanshi Ram, Deputy Director, Animal Husbandry, said the authorities in coordination with the Animal Welfare Board, Chennai, would soon launch a drive to sterilise dogs.