Principal Secretary chairs meeting to review progress of wildlife clearance in UT Ladakh

Principal Secretary chairs meeting to review progress of wildlife clearance in UT Ladakh

Leh, February 05: Principal Secretary, Forest, Ecology, and Environment, Dr. Pawan Kotwal chaired a meeting in his office chamber to review the progress of wildlife clearance proposals in UT Ladakh.

In the meeting, Principal Secretary observed that pending wildlife clearances in UT Ladakh were almost nil as the State Board of Wildlife has been regularly holding meetings.

Wildlife Warden Leh, Pankaj informed the Principal Secretary that a total of 69 proposals for wildlife clearance were uploaded on the Parivesh portal out of which 62 proposals were represented in the State Wildlife Board. And out of the 62 proposals, 58 were already cleared by the State Wildlife Board.

Further, the Wildlife Warden, Leh, informed that the 58 cleared cases were sent for consideration to the National Board for Wildlife, out of which 44 cases were already cleared.

The Principal Secretary directed the Public Works Department to submit an Animal Passage Plan for the construction of roads within Changthang Cold Desert Wildlife Sanctuary and Karakoram Wildlife Sanctuary. After every 5km, at strategic locations, an underpass or an overpass has to be installed as passageways for the safe movement of wildlife. The Principal Secretary directed wildlife officials to share the guidelines on animal passage plans along with various designs of the passages with all the agencies.

Further, he instructed the Administrative Secretaries to appoint a nodal officer to coordinate with the Wildlife Department for submission of wildlife clearance proposals of their respective departments on the Parivesh portal. He also directed the Public Works Department and Power Development Department to submit the pending proposals by February 11, 2022, to the State wildlife board.

Commissioner Secretary and Divisional Commissioner UT Ladakh apprised the Principal Secretary on the status of their respective department’s wildlife clearance proposals.

The meeting was attended by Commissioner Secretary, GAD, A.K. Sahu; Divisional Commissioner, Saugat Biswas; Secretary Tourism, Mehboob Khan; Secretary Power Development Department Ravinder Kumar; Chief Wildlife Warden, Preet Pal Singh; Regional Wildlife Warden, Mufti Sajjad Hussain; Wildlife Warden, Leh, Pankaj, and Chief Engineer, Tashi Chombel.