About 21 proposed road, bridge projects to be cancelled in Adilabad

Forest officials said that the NBWL suggests construction of the special bridges to reduce disturbance caused by movement of vehicles in the forests that are inhabited by wild animals, in particular tigers

Adilabad: About 21 proposed roads and bridges project are going to be cancelled due to lack of clearances from National Board for Wildlife (NBWL), a wing of National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), in erstwhile Adilabad district.

“A decision was made to cancel 13 proposed roads and bridges located in Kumram Bheem Asifabad district, six roads in Adilabad and three in Nirmal, citing lack of clearance from the NBWL for quite a long time. Special bridges should be constructed to get the clearance to construct the roads and bridges which are situated under the limits of Kawal Tiger Reserve,” an official of the Panchayat Raj department regret.

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Forest officials said that the NBWL suggests construction of the special bridges to reduce disturbance caused by movement of vehicles in the forests that are inhabited by wild animals, in particular tigers.

Agencies that take up the projects should take measures to mitigate adverse impact on wildlife as per instructions of the wildlife board. However, the cost of the bridges is significantly higher than the value of road projects, causing additional financial burden on the agencies.

For instance, the cost of an eco-bridge is Rs 9 crore as against the estimated cost of Rs 3 crore for a road. Consequently, the proposed road and bridge projects were kept in cold storage for somewhere between 3 and 8 years.

Proposals were prepared to form a road from Laxmipur to Indervelli mandal centre at an estimated cost of Rs 1.26 crore in 2017. The road is on the list of developmental projects to be cancelled due to lack of clearance from the forest department. Two low-level bridges proposed to be built across streams on Bejjur-Somini Road have been cancelled citing the same reason.

A proposed high-level bridge across a stream near Dimda village in Chintalamanepalli mandal was among 13 projects that were cancelled by the Panchayat Raj department, following the delay in getting the nod from the union ministry of environment, forest and climate change.

The village regularly gets disconnected from the mainstream, once the stream is flooded.

The cancellation of the projects, however, is bad news for the people dwelling in remote areas. Dwellers of interior habitations are often isolated from the rest of the world if local streams swell in monsoon. There have been instances of pregnant women dying while being shifted to a primary health centre.