Despite NGT ban, work on windmills continues near Desert National Park

JAIPUR: National Green Tribunal (NGT) in September this year banned installation of windmills near

Desert National Park

(DNP) to protect the Great Indian Bustard, locally known as godawan, a critically endangered bird species found in India and Pakistan. Work on windmills, however, continues apace in the area surrounding the park that fall in the flight path of the godawan.

The ban on installation of windmills would continue until the notification of the Eco Sensitive Zone (ESZ) around the park was finalized, NGT had ordered. The ESZ has still not been notified - Ministry of Environment and Forests guidelines provide for a 10-km zone around national parks that could be declared ESZ.

In its September order, NGT asked the state government to declare 3,162 sq km around DNP as an eco-sensitive zone. "Unregulated windmills" in the DNP, the order said, were posing a threat to the survival of the godawan. Last year, Mahendra Borawat and 11 other villagers filed a petition with the NGT when windmills installation companies built roads in the protected area.

MK Ranjitsinh, from the erstwhile royal family of Wankaner in Gujarat who served as an IAS officer and was the force behind the drafting of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, said, "Laws and court rulings thereon must be observed in both letter and spirit. The state has deliberately not notified the ESZ and hence the NGT was right in banning the setting up of windmills till notification is made. Would request Rajasthan government to set up an ESZ in the real sense of the term and not an ill-disguised facade."

Deputy conservator of forests Anoop KR, in charge of Desert National Park, said, "The only permanent solution to this problem is to identify the flight path of the godawan and relocate all windmills that have already come up. The windmills are being installed in revenue land, which is not under the control of the forest department. The collector is the one granting lease of this land to windmill firms. He should prevent the installation of these mills on the route of the bird."

Collector Matadeen Sharma said, "No installations are happening in violation of court orders. If there is any such work ongoing, then I have not yet been informed. I will take action if it is found that court orders are being violated." Local activists have photographed work on windmills in land allotted to the private Vish Wind Infrastructure. Rajendra Vyas, spokesperson for the firm, however, said, "We are not carrying out installations at the moment."

The bustards are disturbed by the constant whirring of the blades of the windmills. Besides, a network of cables supplies the power generated in the mills to the grid. These are hard to negotiate for these large birds, which International Union for the Conservation of Nature has on the "red list" of critically endangered species. IUCN website explains that the bird has been extirpated from 90% of its original range and is now principally confined to Rajasthan - a 2014 survey revealed 38 individuals. In May last year, the state government announced the Rs12 crore 'Project GIB' to save this bird.