Kolkata: In a first in Bengal, five underpasses, designed to accommodate large elephant herds, have been proposed along NH 327 between Bagdogra and Panitanki in Darjeeling district to facilitate safer wildlife movement.The forest department has proposed the underpasses, as part of the project to expand NH 327 to four lanes, to the Union ministry of road transport and highways. Together, the elephant movement routes, to be created under elevated stretches of the highway, will span around 1,800 metres.As instructed by the ministry, an inspection panel set up by the forest department comprising foresters and wildlife scientists reviewed the project areas on Oct 5.The Bagdogra-Panitanki stretch sees significant elephant movement, particularly between May and mid-Dec, when more than 120 elephants move through the area.Each underpass will be around 7m high and 22m wide, allowing animals in large herds to move side by side. The longest, around 700m, has been proposed at Kiranchandra Tea Garden in Naxalbari.A 315m-long underpass has been planned at Sannyasi Tea Garden in Bagdogra and one stretching 490m has been proposed for Deomoni. The length of the proposed elephant routes at Atal Tea Garden and Panitanki will be around 100m and 200m, respectively.“Large herds use the Kiranchandra stretch, because of which traffic gets stalled on both sides. Our personnel have to remain there for hours to regulate vehicles and monitor the herds,” said Devesh Pandey, divisional forest officer of Kurseong.“We believe the proposed structures could reduce the risk of elephant-human conflict, minimise prolonged traffic stoppages and ease pressure on frontline staff,” said Avijan Saha, project coordinator of Airavat, an NGO focused on wildlife conservation, animal rescue and environmental awareness. He said the NGO had written to the road transport ministry in 2022, and also approached Darjeeling MP Raju Bista, proposing a wildlife corridor below an elevated highway cutting through the elephant zone.“Leopards, too, often follow elephant movement along the busy highway, using the same route,” Saha said.The Bagdogra-Panitanki project is modelled on wildlife underpasses in some other states, such as the ones below the elevated highway (NH-44) in the Kanha-Pench corridor in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.Bilal Habib, a senior scientist at Wildlife Institute of India who was associated with the underpass initiative along the Kanha-Pench corridor, said the north Bengal project has to be approved by the state wildlife advisory board and the National Board for Wildlife before it could be implemented.Pandey said the forest department would revise the detailed project report to incorporate a 10-hectare elephant corridor near Panitanki before submitting it to the road transport ministry.
