Several defence projects, defence roads and transmission line cleared and approved in meeting

Leh, April 24, 2025: The 11^th meeting of the State Board for Wildlife was held under the chairmanship of the Hon’ble Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh, Brigadier (Dr) BD Mishra (Retd), at the Lieutenant Governor’s Secretariat in the presence of the Hon’ble wildlife board members.

At the outset, the HLG and the board members observed a minute’s silence to pay respect to the victims of the Pahalgam terror attack.

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Chief Secretary, Dr Pawan Kotwal, IAS, informed the board members about the request made by the HLG to renowned wildlife expert Dr MK Ranjitsinh to help UT Administration in drafting detailed profiling of wildlife of Ladakh, a comprehensive wildlife policy for Ladakh and the guidelines on role and responsibilities of armed forces in the protection and conservation of wildlife in Ladakh, out of which Dr Ranjitsinh has already worked on detailed profiling of wildlife of Ladakh and work is underway on the other two aspects.

The Chief Secretary also apprised the members of the assessment report on status of black-necked crane in the High Altitude Cold Desert (Changthang) Wildlife Sanctuary 2024-25, informing them that 25 wildlife stewards have been engaged by the Department of Wildlife Protection for seven months and trained and assigned duties to protect and tasked with recording data on number of black-necked cranes, nest sites, chicks, eggs, etc. in 25 different habitats of black-necked crane in the Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary. He also informed that currently there are 69 adult and 20 chicks of black-necked crane in Ladakh. He further informed the members about the workshop/training held for user agencies such as Army and Border Roads Organisation (BRO) officials for handling and correctly uploading wildlife diversion proposals on Parivesh 2.0 portal with the help of NIC Delhi, GoI.   

23 infrastructure development proposals received from the Indian Army and the Intelligence Bureau, MHA, along with wildlife clearance proposal for defence roads and wildlife clearance for transmission line in Karakoram and Changthang Wildlife sanctuaries, were put up for discussion during the meeting. After a detailed discussion, all the projects were approved by the board members, headed by the HLG.

Chairman/CEC, LAHDC Leh, Advocate Tashi Gyalson; Dr Ranjitsinh; wildlife expert Dr RK Singh and Director, Snow Leopard Conservancy India Trust, Tsewang Namgail gave their valuable suggestions in the meeting such as holding discussions on the proposed defence projects with the concerned area councillors so that there is no confusion; minimal acquisition of land owned by the villagers; the need to put up barricades/speed barriers to stop the killing of endangered species such as Pallas’s Cat by speeding vehicles, etc.

Chairman/CEC LAHDC Leh, Adv Tashi Gyalson; Chief Secretary, Dr Pawan Kotwal, IAS; Wildlife expert Dr MK Ranjitsinh; former PCCF Jigmet Takpa, IFoS (Retd); DGP Ladakh, Dr SD Singh Jamwal, IPS; Commissioner/Secretary, Dr Vasanthakumar N, IAS; CCF Ladakh, Sajad Mufti, IFoS; Secretary, IT, Shashanka Ala, IAS; officials from Army, Border Roads Organisation; PDD, Wildlife Department; Wildlife Institute of India and other wildlife experts were present in the meeting.