Rajasthan panel clears de-notification of area
JAIPUR: A Rajasthan wildlife board panel has approved the de-notification of a forest area in the Banshi Pahadpur hills of Bharatpur, from where pink sandstone is being sourced for the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya, as a sanctuary after a survey found that it didn’t possess the flora or fauna essential to qualify as a forest.
A senior forest department official, who is familiar with the development, said the standing committee of the State Board of Wildlife (SBWL), at a recent meeting, recommended de-notifying the forest area of Banshi Pahadpur as a sanctuary.
“There are no forest or animals, and it is difficult to understand why it was made a sanctuary? The government is not just losing revenue because of illegal mining, but unnecessarily, the [forest] department’s image is being tarnished,” the official said, requesting anonymity.
Pink sandstone mined from the hills is being supplied to Ayodhya for the construction of a Ram temple in Uttar Pradesh.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi participated in the Bhoomi Pujan ceremony for the Ram temple in Ayodhya on August 5, 2020, seven months after the Supreme Court resolved the Ram Janmabhoomi dispute in Ayodhya and allowed the construction of the temple.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which has been sourcing stones from Banshi Pahadpur, had complained of supply of sandstone getting stalled because of a crackdown on September 6 and 7 by the district administration. The administration had claimed the stones were being illegally mined from Banshi Pahadpur, a forest block in the north-east corner of the wildlife sanctuary.
The standing committee recommended to SBWL that the sanctuary be de-notified. Once the SBWL approves the recommendation, it will be sent to the National Board for Wildlife, said the official cited above.
Bharatpur district collector Nathmal Didel said the mining, forest and revenue departments had studied the area of Banshi Pahadpur, which has been bereft of forest cover or wild life for the last three decades. “We are trying to de-notify the area of sanctuary to permit mining. If the mining is legalized, it would not only generate revenue but create employment,” he said.
A district official said on condition of anonymity: “The pink and yellow sandstone is in high demand. Illegal mining activity in the area feeds processing units in the district. The district administration takes action against it randomly.”
According to the state mines department officials, until December 1996, around 42 legal mines of pink, red and yellow sandstone operated in the Banshi Pahadpur forest area.