Ethanol Plant Near KB Asifabad Tiger Corridor on Telangana Wildlife Board Agenda
Plans to build an ethanol manufacturing plant right next to the proposed tiger corridor forest areas in KB Asifabad district, is expected to come up for discussion at Monday’s meeting of the Telangana Board for Wildlife.
HYDERABAD: Plans to build an ethanol manufacturing plant right next to the proposed tiger corridor forest areas in KB Asifabad district, is expected to come up for discussion at Monday’s meeting of the Telangana Board for Wildlife. The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) last year had said that the plant could not be allowed unless the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) granted permission.
The proposal for the 100-kilolitres per day capacity ethanol plant along with a co-generation power generation unit, is located less than 100 metres from the tiger corridor forests whose protection status is now up in the air with the government recently keeping in abeyance GO 49. The order, issued earlier this year, had granted the tiger corridor forests the status of a ‘conservation reserve’ affording the only tiger-bearing forest areas in the district a little more protection.
The ethanol plant proposal has been opposed by the KB Asifabad district forest officials who said several highly protected species of wild animals, including tigers and leopards, use the forest area abutting the proposed plant’s site.
Sources said that with a discussion on the proposed ethanol plant scheduled for Monday’s SBWL meeting, it might also be a good time for the state wildlife board to discuss how tigers and leopard have disappeared from the forest areas near the proposed plant site.
The sources recalled that in January last year, a male tiger in whose territory the location of the proposed plant falls, was poisoned to death along with two of its cubs, while the female tiger and two more cubs, which too are presumed to have died after feeding on the same poisoned cattle carcass.
The sources said that as per NTCA guidelines, no industrial activity can be allowed in tiger corridor forest areas, on in their buffer areas, and if any such facility comes up, it must be demolished and its proponents will face legal action.
