Why Supreme Court ordered new safeguards to protect Great Indian Bustard from power lines

The GIB’s poor frontal vision, combined with its heavy body, makes it difficult for them to detect the linear infrastructure and manoeuvre away, causing deaths due to collision. In its 2018 report ‘Power Line Mitigation’, the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) concluded that unless authorities mitigate the GIB’s mortality due to power lines urgently, its extinction was certain.

The petition sought, among other things, installation of bird flight diverters, an embargo on new power projects in the GIB habitats and directions to preserve the species. Through 2021 and 2024, the SC passed important judgements. First, it prohibited new overhead transmission lines in about 99,000 sq km, directed a committee to assess laying high-voltage power lines underground, and required the installation of bird diverters.

However, the court modified this order in March 2024, withdrawing the prohibition on overhead transmission lines. The Ministry of Power, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change sought to modify the wide-ranging directions in 2021 owing to the order’s vast implications for the power sector, and over questions about the feasibility of burying power lines in such an expansive territory.

The court noted that it has to balance the country’s commitments on climate change and increase its clean energy capacity while conserving the GIB. It also stated that burying power lines underground alone will not lead to conservation of the species.

To balance conservation of GIB with the imperative of protecting against climate change, the SC formed an expert committee. The court broadly tasked it with determining how the extent of power lines could be adjusted in the GIB priority areas, and identifying measures for the long-term survival of the bird.

What measures did the court eventually order?

Based on field visits and stakeholder consultations, the expert committee submitted separate recommendations for GIB habitats in Rajasthan and Gujarat. These centred around three broad areas: revising the area of conservation, suggesting specific mitigation measures to either reroute or bury overhead transmission lines based on their voltage, and designating powerline corridors to reroute lines to prevent threat of collisions.

Revised priority areas: The court accepted the committee’s redrawing of the core conservation zones, known as ‘priority areas’, increasing their extent from 13,163 sq km to 14,013 sq km, while leaving out eastern parts in Rasla-Degray Oran, which the petitioners had sought. In Gujarat, the court increased the extent of the priority area to 740 sq km from 500 sq km.

The SC recorded these categories of conservation zones in its 2024 order based on studies by Rajasthan forest department and Wildlife Institute of India. The priority areas are the most important habitats where GIB presence and their breeding occurs most often. The petitioners, though, objected to the exclusion of the 657 sq km, which they argued was crucial to maintain GIB habitat contiguity. They pointed out that the area is a wintering site and stopover for GIBs when they fly from relatively safer zones in Pokhran to Desert National Park.

In the revised priority area, the focus will be on critical sites such as Desert National Park, Salkha-Kuchri area, Sanu-Mokla-Parewar, Pokhran Field Firing Range, buffer areas of Ramdevra and eastern periphery of the PFFR, Dholiya, Khetolai and Chacha.

Powerline corridors: One of the new and crucial recommendations the SC accepted was creating dedicated ‘powerline corridors’ which will accommodate re-routed overhead lines. These powerline corridors will be up to 5 km width in Rajasthan, and will lie at a distance of 5 km or more to the southern side of Desert National Park.

In Gujarat, the court accepted recommendations to have dedicated power lines of varying width, ranging from 1–2 km. These will evacuate power from wind and solar projects in coastal areas of Kutch. Beyond the committee’s recommendations, the court directed that in cases of dedicated lines starting from different green energy pooling stations, but terminating at a common grid station, authorities would have to optimise the routes through a common stretch, as much as possible.

Restrictions on projects: The SC directed that no new overhead powerlines, except through the powerline corridors (except 11 kV and below capacities), and no new wind turbines should operate in the revised priority areas. It also prohibited new solar parks/plants with a capacity exceeding 2 MW and expansion of existing solar parks, within the revised priority areas.

Voltage-based mitigation: The court accepted measures including immediate burying of 80 km of 33 kV lines, out of 104 km of lines the court identified in its 2021 order, in Rajasthan. All work on burying powerlines and re-routing must start immediately and should be completed before 2028. In Gujarat, authorities will have to move four 33 kV lines running 79.2 km in length in the revised priority area underground immediately. Similarly, authorities have earmarked 64.9 km of 66 kV lines for immediate undergrounding. The Wildlife Institute of India identified 250 km of critical power lines, which authorities would bury underground within a 2-year period.

Importantly, the court did not issue sweeping directions on bird flight diverters, based on the committee’s suggestions. Instead, the committee will submit findings of an assessment on their effectiveness in reducing bird collision mortality to the Centre.

Wildlife biologist Sumit Dookia, who has been working on community-led GIB conservation, said that the judgement should have extended protection in priority areas up to Degray Oran, which adjoins the Rasla enclosure of Desert National Park. “Degray Oran and Rasla Enclosure are crucial GIB habitats and GIB regularly visit them. The judgement also overlooked the mining of limestone near Netsi and Sonu in Ramgarh area, northern side of Desert National Park and has remained silent on upcoming mines and cement factories in Sanu and Parewar,” he said.

What conservation measures did the court direct?

The court accepted both, general and state-specific, measures to continue conservation of the GIB along with the ongoing Project GIB. For Rajasthan, the key measures included restoration, conservation and consolidation of the grassland ecosystem.

To complement the conservation happening ex-situ or outside habitats through artificial breeding of Bustard eggs, the court directed several in-situ measures. Enclosure improvement, management of predators such as free-ranging dogs, reptiles that prey on Bustard eggs, food and water management and community engagement were some important ones.

For Gujarat, a crucial recommendation the SC accepted was using a ‘jump-start’ method of using fertile eggs from Rajasthan to incubate and raise chicks in the wild. This involves a process where an infertile egg is swapped with a fertile egg, allowing the female to incubate it. The court also directed tagging birds with GPS trackers to facilitate this process.