CHENNAI: It’s the end of the road for the country’s most ambitious science project. Chief Minister MK Stalin on Thursday requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to drop the India-based Neutrino (INO) project, proposed inside a designated tiger corridor in Bodi West Hills in Theni district. The next step is the State Board for Wildlife (SBWL) formally rejecting the wildlife application filed by Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR).
Secretariat sources told Express that the Environment and Forest Department, after assessing the pros and cons of the neutrino project, has red-flagged it considering the construction site falls inside the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA)-designated Mathikettan-Periyar tiger corridor, as reported by Express last week.
The forest department had sent a detailed note to the Chief Minister’s Office on Tuesday explaining why the INO project, despite being a project of national importance, cannot be permitted at the current proposed location.
As per the details available in the Parivesh portal of Union environment ministry, the wildlife application is currently pending with the State Board for Wildlife (SBWL), which is scheduled to hold its next meeting in July. Official sources said: “The chairperson of the SBWL is the Chief Minister. So, the INO wildlife application is likely to be formally rejected,” sources confirmed.
Qamar Qureshi, scientist at Wildlife Institute of India (WII), welcomed the Tamil Nadu government’s move and said: “Tiger corridors cannot be disturbed or disconnected. These corridors hold the key to tigers’ genetic flow and dispersion, which results in an increase in population. They assist the movement of the spillover population of tigers from one reserve to another.”