“Difficult to install traffic barriers at Kaziranga”

The Hindu: Guwahati: Tuesday, 17 March 2015.

The Assam government has expressed its inability to comply with a directive of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) for installation of sensor-operated automatic traffic barriers at animal corridor points along the national highway passing through Kaziranga National Park, citing technical difficulties.

In its affidavit filed before the NGT, the State government stated that there was no field-tested and proven system which can be bought off the shelf and various technologies available for detection needed to be studied and field trials done to find out the best suitable technology for Kaziranga’s environment. The actual implementation of the system would time, the government stated in the affidavit.

The NGT issued the directive on March 20, 2014, on a petition filed by Right to Information (RTI) and social activist Rohit Choudhury.

The difficulties identified by the State government in use of sensor-operated barriers are: automated electro-mechanical gates take several seconds to operate, sudden closing with barrier will lead to serious accidents, false alarms will lead to chaos, detection of grazing animals by the side of the highway with no intention of crossing will keep the gates closed for a long time until the animals move away, and in long animal corridors like Kaziranga National Park running into kilometres, the location and number of barriers cannot be fixed as animals can be detected at any point along the long corridor.

The State government, however, proposed that warning lights/sign boards can be activated initially manually with the use of thermal camera and night vision binocular. “Once animal sensors are put in place, automated activation of warning light will be ensured.”

The government informed the NGT that the Transport Department has deployed three traffic interceptor vehicles for detection of over speeding and rash driving vehicles within 66-km stretch of the national highway through the national park and 634 cases of speed violation have been detected by district transport officers of Golaghat, Nagaon and Jorhat over the past one year.