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The Assam Government’s plans to set up five-star hotels next to Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve (KNPTR) has hit a roadblock yet again. According to a recently filed affidavit by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) in the National Green Tribunal’s (NGT) principal bench in New Delhi, the park is yet to formulate a tourism plan, let alone a tiger conservation plan and an eco-sensitive zone around the protected area, tagged as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The NGT in August 2024 took a suo moto cognizance following a news report that claimed that Assam Government acquired a large parcel of agricultural land belonging to local Adivasi farmers to build a five-star hotel on the Karbi Anglong-Kaziranga landscape. As park authorities teetered to control the wild animals fleeing a flooded Kaziranga earlier this year in June during the monsoons, Golaghat district administration reportedly moved bulldozers over these farmlands and evicted the Adivasi farmers. The farmers and organisations representing several indigenous communities around KNPTR claimed that the said land situated in Inlay Pathar, close to Kohora, the central range of KNPTR, served as a shelter for wild animals, rhinoceros and even tigers during the floods.
MoEF&CC and National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) filed a common reply on November 14, 2024, in response to NGT’s suo motu petition.
The government stated that specific guidelines had been issued for tourism activities in tiger reserves in form of NTCA (Normative Standards for Tourism Activities and Project Tiger) Guidelines of 2012 under Section 38 O (1) (C) of the Wildlife (Protection) Act (WLPA), 1972. These guidelines prohibit any new tourism infrastructure in the core areas of the tiger reserves.
The affidavit highlighted that the term ‘tourism’ in the context of tiger reserves is contemplated as ‘ecotourism’, which needs to be ‘ecologically sustainable nature-tourism’. “It is distinct from ‘mass tourism’ having sustainable, equitable, community-based effort for improving the living standards of local, host communities living on the fringes of tiger reserves. Ecotourism is fostered under ‘Project Tiger’ to benefit the host community in accordance with tiger reserve specific Tourism Plan forming part of the Tiger Conservation Plan, subject to regulation as per carrying capacity, with a focus on buffer areas. Since tourism has been happening in areas of national parks and wildlife sanctuaries which are now designated as core or critical tiger habitat, regulated low impact tourism [visitation] is allowed in such areas subject to site specific carrying capacity,” the affidavit stated.
Under the NTCA guidelines of 2012 as well as Section 38 V of WLPA, 1972, the Chief Wildlife Warden of the state shall ensure that each tiger reserve prepares a tourism plan, as part of the statutory Tiger Conservation Plan, as per the MoEF&CC affidavit.
“This site-specific tourism plan forming part of the Tiger Conservation Plan shall be approved as per the provision of the WLPA, 1972. Prior to this approval, no new infrastructure for tourism [except for minor alterations in existing modest home stays] shall be allowed to be developed around tiger reserves,” the affidavit said.
Curiously, the affidavit stated that there was no tourism plan in place for Kaziranga as its tiger conservation plan is yet to see the light of the day. “The Tiger Conservation Plan of the Kaziranga Tiger Reserve is yet to be by the State Government of Assam,” the MoEF&CC affidavit added.
It noted that the tourism plan should include a monitoring mechanism, estimated carrying capacity, (which may be modified on a site-specific basis), tourism zones and demarcation of the area open to tourism based on objective and scientific criteria.
“It is pertinent to mention herein that any core area in a tiger reserve from which relocation has been carried out, shall not be used for tourism infrastructure,” added the affidavit.
The document by MoEF&CC also outlined that any existing permanent facilities used for wildlife tourism have to be phased from core and critical tiger habitats through a timeframe decided by the local area committee. “There shall be no privately run facilities such as catering, etc., inside the core or critical tiger habitat. Such existing facilities if any, are to be run by the Tiger Conservation Foundations,” the affidavit added.
According to the director of Kaziranga National Park, Sonali Ghosh, the tiger conservation plan (TCP) is being readied by the KNPTR authorities. “Tiger conservation plan for Kaziranga is in draft stage which is currently being updated with the data on population estimation of tigers. It is expected to be finally submitted by Jan 2025. The TCP has a comprehensive tourism plan,” Ghosh told Down To Earth (DTE).
The affidavit caused a stir among the environmental lawyers and activists in the state. Vikram Rajkhowa, a senior environmental lawyer from Assam, expressed his shock over a recently concluded tourism mart organized by Assam Government in which hundreds of tourism companies exhibited their products in KNPTR in the light of the MoEFCC’s affidavit. “In absence of a tourism plan and a tiger conservation plan areas where the exhibition was held and the recently acquired parcel of land by Assam Tourism Development Corporation for a five-star hotel, there is no way to know if they are situated in core or the buffer areas of Kaziranga’s tiger habitat. KNPTR authorities first need to calculate the carrying capacity of the Park and the surrounding areas. They need to figure out the cumulative impact of the existing tourism infrastructure in the area before they start working on tourist zones,” Rajkhowa told DTE.
Incidentally, as KNPTR’s eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) is yet to be demarcated with Gauhati High Court hearing a petition on the subject, the Assam Government’s proposal for setting up privately owned five-star hotels remains highly controversial. “Now the matter of ESZ of KNPTR remains sub-judice with Gauhati High Court deciding over the matter. At present, a 10-km radius as mandated by the Supreme Court of India remains applicable, which prohibits large construction such as five-star hotels in these areas,” Rajkhowa said.
On the other hand, Pranab Doley, the convenor of Greater Kaziranga Land and Human Rights Committee (GKLHRC), an umbrella organization representing the concerns of communities living around KNPTR accused the Assam Government of repeatedly ignoring several memoranda on introducing five-star hotels in an area where communities thrive with wildlife.
“When the project was announced in 2022 the people under GKLHRPC has submitted numerous memorandums and letters to the government asking for their land rights to be respected and also citing how it is an important territory for the wild animals as it is regularly used by the elephants and other wild animals to cross over to the adjacent Karbi Anglong hills and vice versa. But the Assam government and the forest department completely ignored the call,” Doley told DTE.
Doley pointed that raising the issue of the five-star hotels led to a physical attack on him and other members of GKLHRC recently by unscrupulous local land sharks aiding in private capture of the lands. At present, one Assam police battalion guards the site for the proposed five-star hotel to be developed by the largest partner of Hyatt Hotels in Inlay Pathar. “We demand that the disputed area should be immediately cleared off the police battalion and ATDC occupation and given back to the families who have been using it for generations,” Doley added.