Success 99%, Hope Just 1%

The Economic Times, 21 May, 2012

Forget damage control,after one year in the CMs office,Mamata Banerjee doesnt feel the need for even a course correction 

It's not difficult to see why the urban intelligentsia so derides Mamata Banerjee. It is one thing to drapeKolkata in the blue and white of her trademark sarees or to banish humour from a culture anyway plagued with the po-faced, and quite another to claim that Bengal's most revered poet's Nobel-winning work was a novel.

On her party website, the Bengal chief minister maintains a diary. On May 16, she unveiled a Rajasthani translation of Tagore's Gitanjali. The corresponding entry in " Didi's Diary" reads: "...there is a need to translate and read more of such novels in all regional languages." That, in Kolkata, is a desecration nothing, even blaring Rabindrasangeet 24x7 at noisy traffic signals, can reverse.

It is not difficult either to see why didi could not care less. There are no public standards for aesthetics. Parliament has taken her cue and wiped textbooks clean of cartoons. Even the web diary is logged in English and a certain translator must have been lazy, or conspiratorial. Anyway, such issues, didi knows, antagonise mostly the urban middle class. And she knows better than to repeat the mistake that cost the Left Front its regime of 34 years.

THE LEFT COURSE

The Left remained invincible as long as it stayed focussed on rural Bengal. Its ministers lost elections in Kolkata and other urban pockets, but Jyoti Basu's regressive politics that drove everyone away, including many Bengalis, reaped rich harvests from the hinterland in successive elections.

Massive urban unemployment and empty state coffers forced Basu's successor Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to look away from villages and woo investors. While a few IT companies struck base in the cities, other industries required rural land, fragmented by small holdings since the success of Operation Barga. An inept acquisition drive backfired on Bhattacharjee, fumbling and high-handed in turns, leading to the poll debacle.

Not to let go of the opportunity, Banerjee, for all her volatile unpredictability, has been astutely methodical during her first year as chief minister. She began by returning land acquired for the Tatas to farmers. Next, her government banned SEZs. The Land Sealing Act was put in a limbo. She also refused to acquire land for industries and asked companies to deal directly with farmers.

While building confidence among the rural voters, these steps have virtually closed all doors for investment in the state. Infosys, Wipro, Jindal, among others, waited indefinitely. While India Inc simply shook its head, Assocham bosses voiced their disappointment in Kolkata. Didi, of course, still claims that investment worth Rs 80,000 crore is ready to be pumped into Bengal. But then she also claims creation of five to six lakh jobs in one year.

POOR MANAGEMENT

While the vernacular press, which caters to rural voters, was busy digging holes in her outlandish claims, Banerjee launched a PR blitzkrieg. She banned top-selling newspapers in government libraries. With her blessings, three pro-government dailies and two news channels have emerged to counter the critical press. Banerjee also offered pension to journalists.

Amid the comforting confusion created by this media squabble, her policy of subsidy continues to target rural Bengal. While cities have only got cosmetic makeovers, villagers are given rice at Rs 2 a kilo and 30% subsidy in Anandadhara scheme under the National Rural Livelihood Mission. Banerjee has also assured the rural poor of minimum 33 days' guaranteed work and fully subsidised crop insurance. After fast tracking the process of issuing Kisan credit cards and loans up to 50,000 without collateral, she has even barred banks from auctioning land if a farmer defaults on repayment.

While didi's supporters argue that such largesse for the poor is necessary in a welfare state, Banerjee has done precious little to ensure earnings so that her government can support such sops in the long term. Her only financial success has been to wring out a significant loan waiver from the Centre.

URBAN, WHO?

Banerjee's party workers in villages across the state eat away much of the subsidies she doles out. Already, the CPM raj in rural Bengal has been replaced by Trinamool's, indicating a similar stranglehold over this decisive vote bank.

In urban and semi-urban areas, Banerjee's couldn't-care-less attitude has so emboldened organised hooligans affiliated to her party that virtually every builder is being forced to accept supply of inferior construction material at an exorbitant price. Thanks to her refusal to acquire land for industries, party middlemen have stepped in to make a fast buck.

These "syndicates" are part of a larger anarchy that does not encourage investment. In an admission of party-cracy, Banerjee's latest appeal to Trinamool cadres includes: "Abstain from visiting schools, colleges, police stations etc, stop indiscriminate use of party letterheads and abide by the traffic rules."

Naturally, there is fear that the fragile law and order situation may worsen. Urban resistance to didi may also gain political strength. Otherwise, her second year in the office is unlikely to be very different from the first.

The only challenge now facing Banerjee is to sustain the regressive subsidy game in a bankrupt state because she has pretty much nothing else to do. She already claimed to have succeeded in accomplishing "99% of what she set out to achieve".


Or, maybe there is still that 1% chance of a miracle.

Why the Sariska Siege Never Ends

Tehelka, 19 May, 2012

The boundaries of Sariska Tiger Reserve are nowhere demarcated on the ground. This perfectly suits the mining mafia and land sharks while keeping the poor villager on tenterhooks


BY THE time you read this, Rajasthan’s Sariska Tiger Reserve may have reached a flashpoint yet again. By 14 May, more than 4,000 police personnel were deployed in the area. The Sariska administration has already shifted base to Alwar. The tiger reserve is now an open territory with villagers and forces moving freely inside the restricted zones.
Barely six weeks after the last stand-off was resolved on 5 April, villagers are back camping on the roads, with a set of demands, including implementation of the assurances offered by the Alwar district administration last month. This time, the agitators have the backing of Kirori Singh Bainsla, the champion of the Gujjar cause.
Over the past six years, villages are being shifted out from the core areas of Sariska at a painfully slow pace. Although the present agitation demands an inquiry into corrupt practices that deny compensation to the poor and favour the influential, it is not against village relocation.
Even outside the core area, no blacktop road is allowed inside the reserve. Access is also restricted. Registry of property deals is not allowed without a no objection certificate (NOC) from the Forest Department. Villagers cannot avail of bank loans, secure electricity connections or ration cards. Mining or industry is obviously forbidden. But the agitation is not really about rewriting the laws.
The core issue that has kept this standoff alive for more than two decades is the absence of demarcated forest boundaries on the ground. The ambiguity, allege villagers, suits everyone. The rich get to mine what is actually forestland. Forest officials get away with harassing villagers who are, in fact, outside their jurisdiction.
Sariska became a tiger reserve in 1978. A local NGO filed a PIL against illegal mining in 1991 and the Supreme Court formed a fact-finding committee under the chairmanship of retired judge ML Jain. Based on a “traced map provided by the Forest Department,” the Jain Committee held in 1993 that Sariska was spread over 1,145 sq km and 262 mines were shut down within that area.
In 1994, the apex court wanted to double-check and asked the Centre to spell out the actual expanse of the tiger reserve. The Project Tiger directorate and the forest management at Sariska submitted affidavits, providing a block-wise area statement that claimed 866 sq km within the tiger reserve. Thus, Sariska was geographically defined and the SC banned mining within its boundaries. Illegal mining, however, continued in violation of the order till the SC’s Central Empowered Committee (CEC) intervened in 2006 and shut down a dozen mines.
However, the disputes continued because the 866 sq km of the tiger reserve was never demarcated on ground, even after the CEC’s order in 2006. As a result, a number of illegal mines operate legally on paper because forest officials have reasons to mark these patches of forestland as revenue areas in the absence of any ground demarcation. For example, a section of the agitators claimed that the so-called legal mines in Palpur village actually exist on forestland that the Forest Department has kept out of the tiger reserve by citing inappropriate notifications.
To make up for these lucrative concessions, revenue villages are arbitrarily included in the tiger reserve so that the total area adds up to 866 sq km. This has been impinging on the basic rights of villagers, fuelling anger. What complicates the issue further is the involvement in the ongoing agitation of a section of mine owners who allege their legal mines were wrongly shut down and claim a ground demarcation of the reserve boundary would revive their business.
Yet, nobody in the government is willing to bell the cat by settling the boundaries once and for all. The state Forest, Revenue and Mining Departments have been engaged in a prolonged blame game and it is not difficult to see why.

Convenient limits The Sariska forest staff keep altering the reserve boundaries at will. An uprooted old stone pillar (top) and a new one built right inside Kalwar village


The records included in the area statement submitted to the SC in 1994 do not tally with the map furnished with it. The discrepancies were so glaring that the surveyor was constrained to add a facesaver comment on the map: “Prepared by me as per the direction of FD (Forest Department), PT (Project Tiger), Sariska.”
In July 2008, a note prepared by the district administration claimed that Sariska’s limits were already demarcated on ground. But only a month ago, the Forest Department approached the Survey of India (SoI) to undertake the demarcation work. In August 2008, the then principal chief conservator of forests of Rajasthan explained in a letter to SoI that “the exact boundary, including the location of pillars, is not known”. The SoI eventually backed out of the job because the Forest Department failed to provide reliable maps and records.
Back in 1999, the Sariska management wrote to the chief wildlife warden that a number of land records of the forest were missing. Copies of such records are maintained separately with the Revenue and Forest Departments. Yet, the forest bosses borrowed the said records from the Revenue Department, which in 2003 claimed the documents were never returned.
Consider the example of Kalwar village. After a prolonged legal battle, it became clear in 2003 that the Forest Department did not include the forest area of Kalwar in the tiger reserve as per the 1968 notification, but claimed the revenue village as part of Sariska. The Forest Department appealed against the tehsildar’s report to the court of divisional commissioner, Jaipur. The appeal was rejected in August 2009. The forest bosses knew better than to move a higher court.
The forest boundary along Kalwar has not been redrawn, though. Interestingly, the correction may bring a number of mines that were shut down in Kalwar back in business while shutting down a cluster of operational mines in neighbouring Palpur.
Meanwhile, land sharks have sensed the opportunity. “Big buyers are influential people and know which villages would eventually be marked outside Sariska. But they push us to sell our land cheap because the Forest Department has created the impression that our villages come within the reserve. They also offer to buy encroached land at a throwaway price because they can easily get such plots regularised,” explains a villager, whose family was recently forced to sell land in Raika village to an IAS officer who has already purchased 80 bighas with the “actual ground possession” of 145 bighas.
With too many interests at play and some serious mining fortunes at stake, the Forest Department, it seems, has thrown caution to the wind. There is clear evidence of the Sariska staff uprooting old boundary pillars of the reserve and hastily planting new ones right inside villages. Here and there, uprooted stone pillars have not even been removed from the spot.
Understandably, the villagers are belligerent. A revenue official was nearly assaulted last week for “toeing the forest line” at a public meeting in Kushalgarh. Agitators are also demanding action (in fact, nothing short of jail terms) against the forest officers who “allowed mining for constructing anicuts and repairing roads in the core area while showing us the rulebook for every petty offence”.
Agitators claim, they are not against “following the forest laws or even moving out” if their villages came within the reserve after the ground demarcation. “But we will no longer be taken for a ride,” said one, “We must know where we stand.” After 34 years at Sariska, no prize for guessing why even that is such a big ask.

Lessons from a tiger forest

TIGER NATION, 16 May, 2012

Poaching, not tourism, tripped Ranthambhore tiger reserve in the last decade. Again teeming with cubs, its future depends not on the number of tourists on safari vehicles but the level of security in this forest landscape.

Here is good news from Rajasthan. What was common knowledge among wildlife enthusiasts has become official during a recent census: the presence of 21 cubs in Ranthambhore tiger reserve. Given that tigers have refused to breed in a highly disturbed Sariska since the reintroduction drive was launched in 2007, the news that the state’s only other reserve is teeming with cubs has brought cheer to many.

Ranthambhore suffered mass poaching and routinely made national headlines during the last decade. The reserve has also been cited as an example of messy wildlife tourism on many occasions. In these contexts, the happily breeding tigers of Ranthambhore offer us an opportunity for some introspection.

Tiger populations have high turnovers and it is not unusual for Ranthambhore to throw up 21 cubs. In fact, recalls wildlife photographer and hotelier Aditya Singh who shifted base to Sawai Madhopur 13 years ago, the reserve has always produced about 20 cubs every two-year cycle, amounting to more than 120 cubs during his association.

“Between 2000 and 2003, we were filming with a BBC crew for over 450 days. I remember we shot 17 cubs belonging to seven different tigresses. There were another four cubs in areas that we did not cover,” says Singh.

All these years, tourism has been a roaring business in Ranthambhore. But the only time the tiger population and the number of cubs dipped alarmingly was during 2003-2005 when poaching was at its peak. In 2005, Ranthambhore’s tiger population had dropped to 17 with only five cubs and one adult male to report. Since there was just one male even among the cubs, recovery took a while after the threats of poaching subsided.

By 2007, the numbers saw a marginal improvement -- from 17 to 19, including 3 cubs -- but already four adult males were walking the reserve. A rebound was on the cards and soon Ranthambhore’s tiger population started showing a male-surplus trend. In 2009, the reserve recorded 45 tigers, including 14 cubs and 11 sub-adults. Nearly half of the population was male and six of them adults.

Three years on, the numbers seemed to have stabilised at 46, including 21 cubs. But the sex ratio has got further skewed with the presence of 11 adult male tigers. While dispersing males is excellent news for adjoining forests, lack of safe dispersal grounds has already resulted in infighting and death.

But before we get there, let us exorcise a few popular theories that hold safari tourism as a potent threat to tigers. Unlike Corbett, Ranthambhore is lucky to have all tourism properties in a township that does not stand on any animal corridor. While many of these resorts are party to a civic mess that makes Sawai Madhopur’s clogged sewers stink and its groundwater table sink, they cannot inflict any direct harm on wildlife. So the bulk of the criticism of tourism in Ranthambhore is directed at rowdy safari tourism inside the reserve.

Unless tourists and guides have malicious intent, their mere presence on safari vehicles does not seem to bother tigers. There is no scientific evidence yet to suggest the contrary. Even during the height of poaching in 2005, all five cubs of Ranthambhore were inside the tourism zones, which cover only about one-third of the national park. During the 2006-07 recovery, two of the reserve’s three cubs were born in tourist areas. The trend did not change in 2009 when 12 of Ranthambhore’s 25 cubs and sub-adults flourished under the watch of tourists.

At present, the tourism zones inside the national park harbour only five cubs. Blame an upheaval in the population dynamics caused by airlifting five tigers from the reserve, four of them from the tourism zone. This has resulted in areas such as Kachida and Guda still lying unoccupied after the death of respective resident tigresses. But with so many cubs around, these areas are bound to be filled up soon unless arbitrary interventions continue.

Yet, authorities flaunt quasi-scientific formulae to work out the so-called carrying capacity of a reserve. What we really need is strict implementation of a set of practical dos and don’ts on ground, failing which even one vehicle and a handful of tourists occupying it are capable of harming the wild.

It is common sense that too many vehicles cannot be allowed in a limited tourism zone. We need not tout fancy equations but we still need to set that limit. But there is no justification for not allowing expansion of tourism zones to ease pressure or allow more tourists. If nothing else, more wildlife tourists mean stronger economic incentive for local communities (provided they are the primary beneficiaries of eco-tourism, an area of concern that demands legally-binding clauses for the industry).

Meanwhile, the real good news from Ranthambhore is that tigers have started occupying areas outside the national park. Till 2009, few Ranthambhore tigers settled down in either Kela Devi or SMS sanctuary areas of the reserve. Today, there are nine tigers including 3 cubs in SMS sanctuary and possibly one in Kela Devi. Again, out of the three cubs in SMS sanctuary, two are in its tourism zone.

This positive trend is fraught with obvious dangers. Two dispersing tigers were poisoned in Kela Devi sanctuary in 2010. Another cub was lost in SMS sanctuary last year. With poaching under check now, thanks to joint efforts by the present park management and local conservationists spearheaded by Dr Dharmendra Khandal of TigerWatch, the cubs of Ranthambhore now have a far better chance to survive to adulthood. They have a range of choices for dispersal. Beyond Kela Devi and SMS sanctuaries, they can repopulate Ramgarh-Darra to the south, Dholpur to the north and Kuno-Madhav national parks to the east. But protection level in all these areas remains dismal.

Therefore, the future of Ranthambhore tigers, and the subsequent fate of the entire landscape, depends on the success of our authorities and activists to reclaim Kela Devi and SMS sanctuary areas of the reserve for the big cat and secure the potential tiger forests beyond.

Local tourism, meanwhile, requires weeding out of rowdy, insensitive elements. But across the country, the real threat lies outside the protected areas, along the edges of our forests, where mega properties block corridors, create sound and light pollution, deplete natural resources by catering to non-wildlife tourists and dupe local communities. We need sharp laws to clean up that mess.

Inside the reserves, however, day tourists on safari vehicles bound by a set of common-sense regulations can only help conservation. It is the citizen’s only access to the country’s best wilderness, otherwise made impregnable by law and left to the forest department’s absolute charge. Potentially, every safari tourist can demand accountability. Closing that window is not democratic. Nor will it save the tiger.

Fixing Corbett: Where to begin

Tehelka, 12 May, 2012


Outraged by the TEHELKA exposé, many readers have slammed the plunder of Corbett’s legacy. But the tiger reserve still has every chance if we insist on a few answers

Scaling new heights A few of many walled resorts between Corbett and the Kosi; this one is owned by a local politician

GOING BY the widespread response from readers, the complexity and the scale of the mess at Corbett Tiger Reserve (CTR), as exposed by last week’s investigation (Corbett. Now, On Sale, 12 May), has demoralised many. Yet, it is very much possible to fix accountability and reclaim CTR. Consider:
THE JAMUN ROAD
The 4-km road was created after an interim order of the Supreme Court had prohibited construction of roads inside CTR. The 2001 apex court order also defined the boundaries of CTR, which included the Durgadevi range where the Jamun road was constructed by then CTR director DS Khati. In any case, construction for nonforestry purposes is not allowed on forestland without statutory permissions. Why was no action taken?
THE ANGLING AGREEMENT
The 1996 SC judgment in the Godavarman case prohibited “all non-forest activities within the area of any forest” without the Centre’s permission. Local communities have the right to fishing. But angling, a commercial activity, was allowed inside a reserve forest in violation of the SC order. The agreement also exists in violation of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, since 2010 when CTR notified its buffer. Why didn’t the Centre intervene?
The angling resorts are supposed to share a part of their turnover with the villagers. Why has no inquiry been conducted into their actual earnings? The Jamun resort has been breaching many provisions of Wildlife, Forest and Pollution Acts with regular drives across the river, cooking on the riverbed, using forestland, etc. Why was nobody penalised?
CONSTRUCTION BOOM INSIDE CTR
The new entrants to villages such as Kalakhand are using the Ramganga riverbed as a road and carrying construction material to their plots on horses and mules from different sides through the CTR forests.
Their construction activities involve burning down of forest patches, felling of trees and quarrying sand and stone from the Ramganga river, all punishable under the Wildlife and Forest Acts. Why have the laws not been enforced and offenders punished?
RELOCATION
The proposal for acquiring abandoned patches of revenue land inside CTR has been pushed repeatedly since 2000. The Central policy is to offer compensation to any village willing to relocate from inside a tiger reserve and funds were made available to acquire land even outside tiger reserves in the past. So, why has the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) failed to acquire these plots, which are now being grabbed by the land mafia? Will the same inability to fund relocation outside core areas stall local efforts to shift Sunderkhal and Chukam villages, both outside CTR core, that block vital corridors to the Kosi river?
Moreover, the state government’s proposal to relocate 181 Gujjar families from the CTR core (Sona Nadi wildlife sanctuary) was sanctioned by the Centre in 2003 and alternative land was identified in Chiriapur range of Haridwar forest division. All keen to move out, the families are still waiting and their numbers have multiplied. Who is responsible for the delay? Why doesn’t NTCA offer cash compensation to the additional families and expedite the relocation before the situation gets out of hand?
DHIKULI AND ECO-TOURISM
In 2010, following a report by the Pusa Institute, the state chief secretary had asked the CTR director to draft a plan for declaring Dhikuli resort belt on the eastern boundary of CTR a “notified area”, which would have bound every property here to construction norms, land use specifications, etc. Why has CTR director Ranjan Mishra failed to finalise the plan even after two years?
NTCA chief Dr Rajesh Gopal was made the nodal officer for drawing up eco-tourism guidelines far back in 2002. Why has he not been able to issue the said guidelines in 10 years? Thanks to the delay, mushrooming resorts have completely choked wildlife corridors in and around Dhikuli and walled private properties are now coming up inside the reserve.
Under pressure, NTCA’s hurried efforts on 7 and 8 May to finalise the said guidelines mostly concentrated on regulating tourist safaris inside the forest — based on the quasi-scientific concept of a forest’s carrying capacity — while the real damage is being inflicted by a boom of walled, mega resorts on the outskirts of forests.
QUARRYING
Kosi and now Ramganga are being quarried for sand and stone. Long stretches of the riverbeds have also been encroached upon. Why hasn’t the administration stopped illegal mining and encroachment that are killing the lifelines of CTR and threatening the water security of Ramnagar town?
MANAGEMENT
Since its management plan expired in 2008, CTR has been functioning without one. Why has CTR director Mishra not been made accountable for failing to draw up the plan? Why has NTCA chief Gopal been issuing funds to CTR in the absence of a management plan?
In the past two decades, CTR’s management plans have failed to resolve fundamental issues such as providing water security to wildlife in the southern parts or converting vast stretches of eucalyptus and teak plantations to natural forests.
Since 2002, four protection forces have been set up with a temporary workforce of 340 daily wagers without creating any infrastructure. On the ground, there is no coordination and every crisis results in blame games among these four forces. Where is the science and vision to secure one of India’s best forests?
POLICY
What is the scientific basis for demarcating core critical areas? While degraded forests dotted with villages are included in the core to ensure minimum area requirement of 800 sq km in many tiger reserves, undisturbed, top quality forest areas of Kalagarh were left out of the CTR core because the national park and Sona Nadi areas made up for the base requirement. Who is responsible for such arbitrary decisions?
CTR’s list of woes runs longer. But finding immediate answers to these few may turn the wheel for India’s most tiger-rich forest.

How they save Tigers in Tadoba In Maharashtra, a trapped cat agonises for nine hours as the rescue team  dithers over intervention POACHERS ARMED with traditional iron foot traps are on the prowl across 29 tiger reserves of the country. This warning was part of an NTCA advisory sent to states a week after two tigers were found trapped by a waterhole in Maharashtra’s Tadoba Tiger Reserve. While one tiger died on the spot, the other spent nine hours in agony and thirst before the Forest Department team ‘rescued’ it. The delay led to gangrene setting in its paw, which may require an amputation, but only if it survives damaged kidneys and renal failure caused by prolonged dehydration. Once they reached the spot with a cage, the vets waited for a treatment cage before tranquilising the distressed tiger as “shifting it from a normal cage to a treatment cage would have required another round of immobilisation”. Nobody asked why the team did not opt for treating the tiger on the spot. Once treated and caged, the second round of active medication might have required another dose of tranquilisers. The tiger might or might not have survived that stress. But by keeping the tiger thirsty and its paw in a bone-crushing iron trap for nine long hours, the officials eliminated such chance factors. Now, if this cat survives, surely it will never return to the wild. Before frowning on such official wisdom, sample this unofficial one. After the incident, wildlife experts were quoted in a national daily recommending creation of a number of new waterholes in Tadoba. The two existing ones, they reasoned, attract all the tigers and increase their chances of getting trapped. So many waterholes would offer them choice and safety. Again, nobody asked if the  move would actually help the poachers. The staff failed to protect two waterholes. What are the chances of their keeping a dozen new ones sanitised?

Corbett. Now, On sale

Tehelka, 4 May, 2012

Blocked wildlife corridors across the Kosi river. Now a rash of private properties inside the tiger reserve itself. Jay Mazoomdaar exposes a scandal that could ruin one of the country’s most precious forests

1. The Rush For Green Gold

Every bit of inhabitable land along the 17-km stretch of the Ramganga river from Dumunda to Marchula is up for sale. The mafia demands Rs 20-80 lakh/acre and buyers include India’s who’s who

2. Burnt Forests, Private Rivers
A 5-km road has been created inside the tiger reserve without any statutory clearance only to provide access to a private resort that is using a stretch of the Ramganga river as its private property

3. New Homes With Stolen Stones
Mushrooming resorts mine the adjacent riverbed for stone and sand for construction activities. The Kosi river has been long ravaged. Now it is the turn of Ramganga river inside the reserve

4. No Gate Pass For Thirsty Animals 
17 km of the Ramganga river will no longer be available to animals. Walled resorts on Corbett’s eastern boundary have cut off animals’ access to the Kosi river and Ramnagar forests. Now fenced properties are coming up inside the reserve

5. The Park For Black Money 
To potential buyers inside Corbett, the mafia is guaranteeing unregulated access to land through reserve forests, free natural resources, collusive forest staff and all-weather political backing. The whole offer runs on ready cash

WITH ABUNDANCE come consequences. Corbett tiger reserve (CTR) has the world’s highest density of tigers. The last all-India census in 2010 estimated 18 tigers per 100 sq km here. It also has the highest concentration of tourist resorts found anywhere around a forest.

Nobody keeps a count but there are at least 100 properties in business and new ones are coming up every season. Over the past decade, encroachment of peripheral forestland and blocking of wild animals’ access to water bodies and adjoining forests has become routine along the Ranikhet road on CTR’s eastern boundary. Now, the land mafia is buying vast tracts right inside the reserve. Almost every piece of land along the 17 km stretch of the Ramganga river — from Dumunda to Nagtaley near Marchula — in CTR’s Durgadevi zone has either been bought or is up for sale.

Emboldened by a lax and corrupt administration, the mafia, in collusion with a section of the state’s power elite, is forcing the villagers who long abandoned these islands of revenue villages inside the tiger reserve, to sell their land. While the land deals are legal on paper, every other rule is being bent to allow construction and bring business far inside CTR. New forest roads are cut inside the reserve without the Supreme Court’s permission. Stone and sand are quarried from the Ramganga river. Even long stretches of the river and forests are being used as private property to entertain tourists.

Villagers keen to set up their own ecotourism units in the same area are harassed and kept out, lest the monopoly of the big resorts gets compromised. While frustrated locals are selling off their land dirt cheap under pressure, the mafia is “cutting plots” with atrocious mark-ups of 400-1,600 percent for outsiders.

Multiple local sources claim that the buyers include India’s who’s who, among them a young royalty who is the son of a former BJP chief minister, a young turk in Parliament who lost his illustrious father in an accident, and a former husband of one of the country’s most controversial corporate lobbyists.

THE INVITATION

It was the Uttarakhand forest department that opened up the CTR’s Durgadevi zone for tourism in the name of conservation. In 2004, the forest department came up with the idea of allowing angling in the Ramganga river to generate revenue for the villagers and dissuade them from blast fishing, a destructive harvesting practice that threatened aquatic life.

The same year, Mukund Prasad, the Pilibhit-based owner of Leisure Hotels and an old Corbett hand, acquired land in Jamun village on the Ramganga river, 8 km inside the reserve. CTR records of 2004-05 show that then director DS Khati, in violation of the standing SC order, created a 4-km road between Jamun and the existing road to CTR’s Durgadevi gate. Prasad added another kilometre to that road across the river to complete access to his plot and to ferry construction material for the property that has since been marketed as Hideaway River Lodge where rooms go for Rs 15-Rs 20,000 per night.

To allow tourists access and overnight stay at Prasad’s property, the forest department worked quickly on its plan to issue angling permits. Since Prasad had no angling credentials, GIG Mann of Dehradunbased Sporting Ambition was roped in as a proxy. No bids were called for but three other parties were also offered fishing rights to democratise the process.

In November 2004, tripartite MoUs were signed among the forest department, Van Vikas Nigam and respective private parties, giving them free rights to conduct angling in 2-km stretches each along the Ramganga river for 30 years. Prasad got himself the river stretch farthest inside the reserve.

THE COLLUSION

Prasad’s agreement, however, referred to Leisure Hotels, a commercial entity, as Angler’s Association but the signature on behalf of Leisure Hotels was that of Mann. Between 2005 and 2008, Khati’s successor, former CTR director Rajiv Bhartari, raised several objections to the flawed agreement and its misuse by Prasad. He pointed out how Leisure Hotels was using a part of the tiger reserve as its private property with free access to the riverbed and the forest roads even during the night.

“I noticed the irregularities in the agreement only in 2006. The new road to Jamun was also not in order either. But I could not have altered decisions taken by my predecessor (Khati). Anyway, the chief wildlife warden (SK Chandola) was in charge of the angling project. Then, I was transferred,” Bhartari told TEHELKA.

But Prasad was the chosen one of the forest department. In July 2006, then forest minister Nav Prabhat, Bhartari’s predecessor Khati, successor Vinod Singhal and local MLA SM Singhal visited South Africa on an official study tour. Khati handpicked Leisure Hotels as the tour manager without calling for tenders and Prasad accompanied the team.

Spot The Difference Dhikuli Then And Now 2002 The Dhikuli stretch of the Ranikhet road looked congested even a decade ago. With quite a few resorts with swimming pools (blue dots) on this corridor, animal movement  was already restricted between Corbett and Ramnagar forests 2010  With new properties coming up and old ones expanding, farms and orchards all but disappeared by 2010. Two years on, there is virtually no space for animal movement across the Kosi. Many resorts have encroached on the riverbed

“Khati took Rs 20 lakh from the government for the tour. Out of which Rs 10 lakh was given to Leisure Hotels, which subsequently submitted bills for around Rs 7 lakh only. Khati and Prasad have always been close,” claims RD Pathak, a forest officer who approached the Lokayukta against Khati this March with a bunch of charges.

“Not all forest roads are in management plans. We spent only Rs 22,000 to repair an existing road because I had to provide access to anglers. The (angling) agreement was cleared by the state government. I only signed it as the Corbett director,” Khati says in his defence.

Then chief wildlife warden Chandola, however, accepted that the road was not legal. “We closed down the road when the issue was brought to my notice. I can comment on the agreement only after having a look at it,” he told TEHELKA.

DOUBLE STANDARDS
In the name of closing down the illegal road, the forest department dug it up only yards before it reached the Ramganga river across Jamun. Leisure Hotels keeps elephants at its Hideaway River Lodge and routinely ferries tourists from the riverbed to the resort. But the dug-up road cut villagers’ access to Jamun.

“We cannot go to our plots on jeeps anymore and we do not have the permission or the money to keep elephants. The department has been harassing me for five years because I want to set up tourist camps in my land that is adjacent to Mukund Prasad’s resort. If he can do it as an outsider, why not me, a local,” asks Ajay Bhadula, a small-time safari operator at Ramnagar who belongs to a family that owned most of the revenue land inside CTR.

Recently, the forest department barred Maheshanand Ghansela of Paand village from building a hutment on his land at Lohachaur, 4 km downstream from Jamun. “The government neither allows us to develop our land nor offers us compensation. So we are forced to sell our land for Rs 10-Rs 15,000 per nali (20 nalis make an acre) and the mafia, in turn, makes huge profits by selling it to outsiders who have the clout to twist the law,” rues Bhadula.

Sensing the danger of big private players entering the tiger reserve, Bhartari wrote to the collectors of Pauri and Almora in 2007, requesting them not to allow registry of land sales inside CTR as there was a proposal before the Centre to acquire these islands of revenue land by compensating the absentee villagers.

Current CTR director Ranjan Mishra sent the same proposal to Dehradun three months ago: “I have also asked for a review of the angling rights and requested the district officials not to register land sale in that area. Though in buffer, the quality of the forest and density of wildlife in Durgadevi is as rich as that of the national park. No resort is in the interest of Corbett. But there is only so much within my powers.”

The priority of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), however, is to relocate villages from core tiger habitats. “We do not have the money to compensate villagers in the buffer,” says member-secretary Dr Rajesh Gopal, admitting that the Durgadevi forests are among the finest tiger and elephant forests in the CTR. Yet, he would rather the state government took the initiative to secure it.

While everybody was busy passing the buck, UP politician Akbar Ahmad Dumpy emerged as the game changer.

LOSING THE PLOT
Upstream of Dumunda, the edge of the core area, villagers of Paand, Teria and Jharangu own land till Kalakhand. Barely a kilometre from Kalakhand is Jamun. Then there are land holdings along the river by villagers of Barasi, Barghat, Baluli, Jhamaria, Sankar, Marchula, Bandran and Nagtaley inside CTR.

While opportunistic brokers were auctioning any plot they could grab in this virgin stretch, Dumpy, who owns Riverside Resort, one of the earliest hotels in Ramnagar, decided to strike it big in 2009. In the name of Bhatia Developers and two proxies — aide Daroga Singh and local broker Shambhu Singh — Dumpy bought almost the entire village of Kalakhand by 2011. TEHELKA has land documents of Kalakhand showing holdings by both Daroga and Shambhu. In an inspection report on 18 October 2011, Dhumakot SDM Anil Singh also noted that Daroga was building a resort in Kalakhand with Dumpy and ex-MLA Ranjit Singh Rawat.

This reporter approached Dumpy, Daroga and Shambhu as a prospective buyer. Near Baluli village, the price was Rs 18 lakh an acre. It was a package deal: “You will get to use a chunk of community land with your revenue land. That’s a bonus. Then we will run a JCB to make an access road. For construction, just pick up sand and stone with a tractor from the riverbed.” What if the forest staff objected? “A few bottles (of whiskey) and a few (currency) notes will take care of them. If there is any hassle, ex-MLA Rawat will sort that out.”

At Jamun, land price climbed to Rs 21 lakh per acre. “I also have land in Kalakhand but I cannot sell any. Only Dumpy sir can decide,” explained Shambhu.

“You should talk to my person there,” said Dumpy, directing me to Daroga.

“Come over this Thursday, we all will be there,” Daroga summoned me to Kalakhand. “But it will be Rs 80 lakh an acre.”

The price dropped again downstream towards Dumunda. So what is special about Kalakhand? It is the VIP factor, explained Dumpy’s men. “Big people with black money can shell out any amount. They have enough clout to push for a road. Or maybe they will build a helipad.”

The confidence is not misplaced. In May 2011, BJP chief Nitin Gadkari used his party letterhead (copy with TEHELKA) to write to then CM Ramesh Pokhriyal to allow Daroga Singh access through forest roads for agricultural work in Kalakhand.

Contacted by TEHELKA, Dumpy initially did not respond and got Daroga to call up and claim that there was “nothing illegal about the land-holding”. Soon after, Dumpy decided to defend himself: “Daroga is capable of buying his own land like many others have purchased there. My land in Kalakhand is in the name of Bhatia Developers. We friends help one other while developing such properties. But I’m not selling any land. The forest department denied us road access so we use the riverbed to reach our plots on horseback.”

Earlier, Shambhu and Daroga told this reporter that Dumpy controlled at least 100 acres in Kalakhand: “We have not registered all the land in our name. Villagers have been paid advance money and we register plots directly in the buyers’ names as and when they come along. So far we sold more than 20 plots, 5-10 acres each.”

But no property is safe so far inside this forest without fortification. Already a few fenced plots have come up. Very soon, the reserve may end for its animals at the bank of Ramganga, hemmed in by high-tension wires and fences of luxury properties.

Prasad is not worried. “I have my PPP agreement with the government for angling. But nobody else can buy land here because there is no legal access. Dumpy is using his bull force but I doubt how many buyers will take the risk. Anyway, I am purchasing as much land at Jamun as possible to protect the area,” he assures.

He should know. So should Dumpy. Their Corbett Hideaway and Riverside Resort are two neighbouring mega properties on the Ranikhet road. The road few wild animals dare cross.

TOURISM MESS
Along Corbett’s eastern boundary and across the Kosi river, the lush forests of Ramnagar division have richer plant diversity than the CTR and a tiger density (15 per 100 sq km) almost as high. It is vital that the CTR’s animals have access to Kosi and the forests beyond for water security, regular dispersal and genetic health.

But in the 21 km eastern boundary of CTR between Ramnagar and Mohan, only two narrow passages are available to wildlife for approaching the Kosi river, thanks to a timber depot at Ringora, proliferation of walled resorts in Dhikuli and two large settlements at Sunderkhal and Chukam. As a result, man-animal conflict is on the rise with a spate of human and tiger deaths reported in the past few years.

The Durgadevi Mess Power Hub Of Kalakhand Thanks to Akbar Ahmad Dumpy’s aggressive and selective sales pitches, the land price at Kalakhand village is at least four times that of the nearest village Jamun. For commercial activities, there is no legal access to Kalakhand deep inside Corbett’s Durgadevi range. Yet, Dumpy’s men have already sold at least 20 plots here Loot Inside The Reserve  Quarrying of rivers in the night for construction material has been a tradition around the Corbett. Emboldened and with nobody to watch over, now labourers collect bolder during daytime from the Ramganga river adjacent to Jamun village for construction of private properties in Durgadevi range deep inside the tiger reserve Burning Down Forests Land mafia is not only buying abandoned revenue land dirt cheap from absentee villagers inside the tiger reserve but also encroaching on surrounding village panchayat land by clearing and burning down forests. For each legal acre purchased inside forest, say local brokers, an extra acre comes free in most land deals here Private Monopoly  Exploiting a dubious pact with the forest department for angling rights, Mukund Prasad’s Leisure Hotel has taken total control over a few kilometres of the Ramganga and the surrounding forests for entertaining tourists. The management protects his monopoly by barring local villagers from setting up even tents to host tourists

Outside the forest department’s jurisdiction, the district administration has allowed this mindless construction boom in the 1-km-wide strip between two prime forest blocs and Kosi, the lifeline of both CTR and Ramnagar, is being ravaged for its stone and sand.

The mushrooming resorts have little to do with wildlife tourism, though. In peak seasons, CTR offers 1,028 safari seats a day. If even 30 percent of tourists go on both morning and evening safaris, 685 unique tourists can enter the reserve daily. If 20 percent of these tourists are day visitors, CTR’s resorts can expect around 550 safari tourists as guests.

At an average of 25 double-bed rooms per property, about 100 small and big hotels around CTR can accommodate 5,000 tourists daily. Average high-season occupancy of 30 percent translates to 1,500 tourists a day — almost three times the number that can enter the reserve.

Clearly, lakhs of tourists, who do not even bother to visit the reserve, occupy CTR’s resorts. Some come for corporate sessions, others for rowdy weddings. They raise levels of sound and light pollution, drain resources such as water and leave behind mounds of garbage.

The same model now threatens to ruin the Ramganga and Durgadevi forests. “Corbett is too precious to be frittered away. We did whatever possible to control the damage. Strict action is required to rein in the land mafia,” says Anil Baluni, who resigned as the vice-chairman of the state Forest and Environment Advisory Committee earlier this year.

By purchasing village lands in the buffer area, the outsiders can demand right to access and water. But the Centre and the state willing, there are enough legal provisions to restrict land use and unsustainable commercial activities that pollute the forest and water systems inside the reserve.

Otherwise, consider this report a call for investment. If the authorities have willingly surrendered Corbett’s future to private hands, the remaining 450-odd sq km reserve forest of the CTR buffer should also be up for sale soon.