3 March 2020



Areas which should have been wildlife sanctuaries, teeming with animals and birds, now lie hollowed out and turned into opencast iron ore mines in Jharkhand.

This has happened at the hands of the state government. In an elaborate plan it has clandestinely wiped three wildlife sanctuaries off its records in iron ore-rich West Singbhum district. These are Sasangda- buru in Saranda forest division, Bamiaburu in Kolhan forest division and Songra or Tebo in Porahat division.

The plan has been so meticulously executed that one has to sift through records of the past 55 years to unmask it.

These sanctuaries have been mentioned in a report prepared by the now defunct Indian Board for Wild Life (IBWL) on November 24, 1965, for a delegation of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Bihar (undivided), the report says, has seven protected areas — two national parks and five sanctuaries. They also feature in the Indian Forest Records: Glossary of terms used in nature conservation and wild life management, published by the Forest Research Institute (FRI) in 1970.

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