Environmentalist flags 'double standards' in govt’s Kaziranga conservation claims

Guwahati, June 17: The State government is allegedly maintaining a double standard as far as the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve (KNP&TR) ecosystem is concerned. While on the one hand it publicly vows to undertake all the measures for ensuring the safety of the National Park’s wildlife but, on the other hand, it allows the activities that harm the National Park’s ecosystem go unabated.

The Latabari Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Dumping Site and Faecal Sludge Treatment Plant (FSTP) set up by the Bokakhat Municipal Board on the bank of the river Diffloo, works as the patent example in this perspective, said RTI-cum-environment activist Rohit Choudhury.

In a fresh letter to the Chief Secretary of the State, Choudhury regretted that his appeals made through the letters dated August 29, 2024, October 29, 2024, December 9 and 21, 2024 on this issue have been ignored. He urged the Chief Secretary to initiate urgent measures for relocating the Latabari dumping site consistent with the law of the land.

In his letter, Choudhury has vouched that this act of the Bokakhat Municipal Board has resulted in a serious threat to the KNP &TR ecology, reminding that the National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. He resented the Pollution Control Board, Assam’s ‘wilfully glossing over the violations of the Solid Waste Management Rules (SWMR), 2016’, while issuing the ‘Consent to Establish’ (CTE) this project.

Referring to the April 12, 2019 order of the Supreme Court of India, passed in Writ Petition No. 202/1995 in the matter of TN Godavarman Thirumulpad vs Union of India and Others, he warned that any sort of contamination of the Diffloo water would be in violation of the Apex Court’s order. This may invite contempt proceedings against the officials of both the Central and the State governments, including those of the Pollution Control Board, Assam.

The SWMR, 2016 has specifically stated that a landfill site should be 100 metres away from a river. It should be at a distance of 200 metres from a pond, the highways, habitations, public parks and water supply wells. It should be located at a distance of 20 kms from an airports or an airbase, unless approvals from the airport or airbase authorities are obtained to get that distance reduced.

Moreover, landfill sites are not to be permitted ‘within the floodplains as recorded for the last 100 years, zone of coastal regulation, wetland, critical habitat areas, sensitive eco-fragile areas,’ says the SWMR, 2016.

However, the Latabari dumping site is located at a mere 60 metres distance from the river Diffloo, which flows into the KNP & TR. Moreover, it is within 200 metres from human habitation and National Highway 37, besides lying in the floodplains of the Diffloo and is in the KNP & TR Ecosensitive Zone (ESZ), Choudhury said.

He averred that the May 30, 2025 rains made the Diffloo overflow and flood the Latabari garbage dumping site. Since the Diffloo flows into the KNP&TR, it has led to the fear of contamination of the Diffloo water and consequently posing a serious threat to the National Park’s flora and fauna, he said.