The order was supposed to come into effect on Wednesday night.
According to highly placed sources, Kerala Chief Minister Achutanandan is learnt to have spoken to his Karnataka counterpart over the issue and got the orders withdrawn, issued by the district administration of Chamarajanagar district recently. The district administration was forced to revoke its decision as the issue was snowballing into a major controversy. Besides, transporters and general public also opposed the order citing a lot of inconvenience.
When contacted, Deputy Commissioner of Chamarajanagar Manojkumar Meena confirmed withdrawal of the ban orders as a few legislators from Kerala requested to reconsider the decision following inconvenience to general public. “We will soon convene a meeting of all the people concerned soon and try to explain them about the need for banning vehicles.”
Meeting
The Deputy Commissioner said a meeting is scheduled to be held in Bandipur on Thursday to discuss regarding ban on movement of vehicles. The district collectors of respective districts are expected to attend. However, it is not known about their participation since the ban order has been withdrawn.
However, the Deputy Commissioner denied intervention from the chief minister of Kerala.
The district administration of Chamarajanagar had banned movement of vehicles on Gundlupet-Sultan Battery National Highway 212 and Gundlupet-Ooty National Highway 67 which pass through Bandipur National Park between 9 pm to 6 am, in order to save wildlife living in the national park.
The order had stated that Bandipur is one of the important places for breeding of Asian elephants and tigers. However, their population is decreasing following death of wild animals in the hit-and-run cases. For the convenience of local villagers, it had decided to allow running of two buses between 9 pm and 10 pm. However, it had given permission for ambulances and other vehicles with prior permission, round-the-clock.
Nuisance
Deputy Conservator of Forests of Bandipur Project Tiger Raju had submitted a proposal to the district administration to ban movement of vehicles at least during night following nuisance being caused to wild animals of the national park.
Earlier in Bangalore, Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa had promised a delegation led by Wyanad MLA P Krishnaprasad that the night ban of vehicular traffic will not be implemented.
During the meeting, Yeddyurappa questioned the rationality of taking an unilateral decision. According to Krishnaprasad, the Deputy commissioner immediately gave direction to the district administration to roll back from the instruction.
After the meeting scheduled for Thursday, the State is expected to officially declare the roll back of the order. The meeting will also look into other alternative roads to be developed for uninterrupted travel through the sanctuary, the MLA told this newspaper.
Meanwhile, the Karnataka Kerala Travellers Forum representatives, who accompanied the the MLA to submit a memorandum to the Chief Minister, said they were elated by the CM’s direction. “It is really a sigh of relief for scores of travellers who have no other way to reach their native place from Bangalore,” said C Kunjappan, Joint Convener of the forum.