Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Dec 17: The Environmental Policy Group (EPG) today demanded an immediate halt to all “unauthorized” construction and related activities in the Aru and Overa Wildlife Sanctuary areas.
The group also urged the district administration Anantnag to conduct a time-bound joint inspection to assess the extent of environmental damage.
The demand comes amid reports of “unauthorized” construction, road-laying, and terrain alteration in the ecologically fragile Aru Valley, a notified eco-sensitive and no-construction zone, according to the EPG.
In a letter to DC Anantnag, EPG Convenor Faiz Bakshi described Aru Valley as “a high-altitude and ecologically fragile landscape… where any construction without prior statutory clearances amounts to a serious violation of environmental and wildlife protection laws.”
Bakshi said “credible field inputs” indicate ongoing “unauthorized” activities inside the sanctuary.
“These include unapproved foundations, slope cutting, earth filling, and damage to natural vegetation,” the letter stated.
The EPG warned that such interventions “directly threaten wildlife movement, disrupt natural water channels, destabilize fragile slopes, and risk irreversible ecological degradation in an already sensitive Himalayan ecosystem.”
The letter also highlighted the construction of a new road inside the Overa Wildlife Sanctuary at Mamal, Pahalgam.
“It is a matter of serious concern that a fresh road has been constructed up to a dead end, despite similar work at the same location being previously stopped following official intervention,” Bakshi wrote.
The group questioned the “absence of statutory approvals, wildlife clearances, or mitigation measures by the executing agency and noted that the Wildlife Department had not vetted the work.
Highlighting the human cost, the EPG said such activities could undermine eco-tourism-based livelihoods of local communities.
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