SASAN-GIR, July 13: In gross violation of Forest Department rules and the Wildlife Protection Act, the Gujarat government has accorded special privileges to the Kankai Temple Trust in Sasan-Gir, home of the Asiatic Lion. The temple is located inside the sanctuary and on the periphery of the national park area.The concessions include:* Vehicles owned by the trust can enter or leave at any time while forest rules say the sanctuary is closed to traffic from 8 p.m to 6 a.m. Forest officials fear that the protected animals may be run over by vehicles at night.* Pilgrims and vehicles are allowed night halts at the temple and the trust has been permitted to build guest houses.* Commercial vehicles owned by the Kankai Trust carrying construction material or goods to the temple will not be stopped by the Forest Department.* Identity cards have been issued to all the 50 trustees of the temple besides 10 more to `temple sevaks' who can enter or leave the sanctuary at will. If a trustee is accompanied byrelatives or friends they too can enter the sanctuary without permission. It means a trustee with an identity card can take in an entire bus load of people.* Bypassing forest rules for entering or leaving the sanctuary, the Government has decided to do away with the restrictions during the festival months of May and October-November.* The Forest Department will have no control over private vehicles once they enter the sanctuary. They can enter through one gate and exit through another while forest rules specify that vehicles should use the same gate for entry and exit.* Pilgrims are now permitted to bathe and wash clothes in the river which flows by the temple but without using toilet soap or detergent.* The trust has been granted permission to set up a diesel engine windmill, though forest rules bar the use of diesel because of its polluting effects.The Mumbai-based Kankai Trust, which runs the temple, already has several bungalows - equipped with, among other things, satellite dishes -for its guests. Sources say the concessions are aimed at creating the ambience for a full-fledged tourist spot, though officials deny this.The government did not accord any such rights or concessions to the temple trust in the Forest Settlement Report of 1968 and nothing is mentioned in this regard in the reserve forest notification.Officials in the forest department told The Indian Express that following a meeting of the Kankai trustees with state forest minister Kanjibhai Patel, additional chief secretary T S Rangadurai, and Chief Conservator of Forests J.P. Agarwal on March 23, the State Government granted special concessions to the trust that violate sanctuary and wildlife protection rules.A forest department notification - No 22/B/6698/99 - was issued by Agarwal to this effect. The concessions granted leave little doubt that environmental considerations were given the go-by.``This will lead to absolute chaos in the sanctuary,'' said a senior officer. ``On the one hand, the governmenthas resettled the forest dwellers - `maldharis' - under the conservation of bio-diversity programme and on the other it has compromised forest laws and wildlife protection.''Wildlife activists are furious about the government's move. Wildlife photographer Rohit Vyas said the move would have an adverse impact on the wildlife of the world-famed sanctuary. ``There is already much disturbance there, and checking that the government seems to have allowed more of it", he said. Chairman of the Worldwide Fund for Nature's Gujarat unit Ranjitsinh Gaekwad added: "People must learn to behave with nature and wildlife and they should be educated."When contacted, Gujarat Forest Minister Kanjibhai Patel admitted that the department had given "certain concessions" to the religious trust, including special identity cards for the trustees. He denied, however, that the forest department endorsed the trust's proposal to set up a picnic spot comprising housing and shopping complexes and swimming pools in the heartof the Gir Lion Sanctuary.Chief Conservator of Forests Agarwal too denied that special privileges have been accorded to the trust. He said his department would not allow the Kankai temple trust to expand its existing temple complex even by an inch in the sanctuary. Besides, only one truck and tractor owned by the trust would be allowed to ply up to the temple for transporting its goods. "We have made this clear to the trustees at a recent meeting in Gandhinagar", Agarwal said.
