Site inspection report on the ecological impacts of Jamrani Multipurpose Project of Uttarakhand Irrigation Department, Nainital district, Uttarakhand

Abstract

The WII team visited the field site and collected primary field data, had meetings with the stakeholders and collated the necessary secondary information pertaining to this project. The proposed project falls within the Dudwa-Lagga Tiger Corridor, which is an important corridor for tigers in the Terai Arc Landscape. As this report is to facilitate and guide informed decision making by the NTCA, we present two decision making scenarios with differing objectives: (i) Keeping the Dudwa-Lagga Tiger Corridor intact and conserving this as utmost importance or (ii) Balancing the interests of both development and conservation values. Should the objective (i) be chosen, then the proposal has to be rejected, and if the objective (ii) is chosen then stringent compliance conditions has to be stipulated and an independent multidisciplinary committee comprising of members from NTCA, WII, FRI/ICFRE, State FD may be constituted to oversee the implementation of mitigation measures on a half yearly basis and submit their report to NTCA for strict compliance by the project proponent. This will facilitate a regular, transparent and stringent monitoring of compliance by the project proponent.