He said that the construction taking place is in violation of conditions specified by the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) of which prime minister is the chairperson.

In his letter sent on Monday, environmentalist Rohit Choudhury alleged that the Assam government was conducting construction on the stretch of national highway while violating conditions laid down by NBWL in February this year and approving widening and improvement of on the highway from the Kaliabor to Numaligarh section—a length of 85.675 km.

The conditions specified that National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) shall not carry out any construction activities on the animal corridors between June and September.

NBWL also stated that no adverse impact should be caused to wild animals and their habitat due to the widening work on the national highway and that automatic speed detection sensors for speed regulation would be installed.

“The state government has blatantly violated the conditions by allowing construction in the Haldhibari wildlife corridor starting from June 2024 even as the flood season commences,” Choudhury wrote.

He added that the Public Works Department (National Highway) of Assam government damaged the Haldhibari Corridor by converting the metal-based road into an RCC one.

“The speed-sensing camera equipped with Automatic Number Plate Recognizing (ANPR) Radar installed at Maloni (opposite Burapahar Tea Estate) in the Hatidandi/Kanchanjuri Corridor in 2017 pursuant to the orders of NGT, had mysteriously gone missing in 2021 and was never re-installed. This has turned the corridor into a death trap for wildlife owing to speeding vehicles,” Choudhury added.

He mentioned that though the violations were brought to the notice of the union minister for environment, forest and climate change, till date, no response has been received on the complaints filed.

“Your honourable self being the Chairperson of the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL), I request you to kindly issue necessary directions to the Government of Assam to halt the construction activities in the Haldhibari wildlife corridor, and to issue directions to the concerned to initiate punitive action against the Chief Engineer, Public Works (National Highways) Department, Government of Assam, for carrying out construction activity in violation of the conditions of approval of the Standing Committee of National Board for Wildlife,” the letter stated.

HT reached out to the Assam forest minister Chandra Mohan Patowary for his response and the copy will be updated accordingly.