Supreme Court upholds night traffic ban in Bandipur
The nine-hour ban on traffic from 9pm to 6am stays on this stretch
The union government has reiterated that night traffic ban on the highway that passes through the Bandipur Tiger Reserve will not be allowed. The highway connects Wayanad and Mysuru and there were demands that the night traffic ban be relaxed.
In a letter to chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, union minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Prakash Javadekar has said that the proposal for elevated corridor had been discussed at length by the committee of secretaries earlier and it was recommended to maintain status quo at the road stretch where night traffic ban is currently in force.
The Kerala government had been insisting that the existing night traffic ban be bypassed on a 25 km stretch of National Highway 212 by cutting through a core part of the forest with an elevated corridor. The Supreme Court had also upheld this night traffic ban, earlier in August.
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The length of the highway is 272 km, and 34.6 km of this passes through the Bandipur and Wayanad national parks. The road cuts through 19.7 km of the core zone of Bandipur and 4.5 km of its buffer zone. In Wayanad, the division is 4.8 km of the core zone and 5.8 km of the buffer zone. In all, 24.2 km of the highway passes through protected areas in Karnataka, and 10.4 km through protected areas in Kerala.
The night traffic ban was introduced following a directive from the Mysuru Deputy Commissioner in 2009 to provide wild animals a reprieve from vehicular movement. The ban is from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. It was challenged in the High Court of Karnataka, but the decision was upheld.
Earlier this August, the Supreme Court had ordered that ban on night traffic on the national highway passing through the Bandipur Tiger reserve would remain in operation for now.
After years of litigation, curtains finally came down on the Bandipur night traffic ban (NTB) issue in the Supreme Court as per its order on 7th August 2019. Upholding the nine-hour ban from 9pm to 6am, the apex court said once the NHAI completes the upgradation of the alternative alignment, even the existing stretch must be closed for traffic so that wildlife is protected. It also directed the Centre to come up with permanent measures so that highways do not pass through core areas of tiger reserves.
In May, the Centre had filed an affidavit in the apex court recommending continuation of the nine-hour traffic ban on this highway that traverses Bandipur National Park. It was the turning point in the case when the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways supported Karnataka and Tamil Nadu’s stand to maintain the status quo on restrictions for night travel in Bandipur and dropped its proposal for an elevated corridor in the country’s premier tiger reserve.
