Stop The Killer Highway Through Corbett

Even as conservationists in Assam try to minimise wild animal roadkills on NH-37, a highway that obstructs the movement of wildlife from the flooded Kaziranga National Park to the safety of the KarbiAnglong hills… across the country, another killer highway has been foisted on us by the state of Uttarakhand.

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The decision of the Trivendra Singh Rawat-led government to upgrade the unpaved Kandi road that meanders through the core of Corbett into a highway has invited criticism from across India. The proposed Kandi highway will connect the Kumaon division of the state to the Garhwal division, and reduce travel time between the two by a mere two hours. This decision goes against the 2013 formal recommendation of a committee from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change to ban all new roads and the expansion of existing roads within the country’s Protected Areas. It is especially galling as Corbett is India’s first national park, the first to be adopted under Project Tiger, is considered amongst the most tiger dense landscapes in the world, and adds richly to the state’s exchequer through wildlife tourism revenues.