‘Illegal, Untenable’: M.M. Joshi, Karan Singh, Others Oppose Projects Under Char Dham Highway

Forest clearances to the Netala bypass and the felling of trees near Jhala must be scrapped and all projects in the Bhagirathi Eco-sensitive Zone must be reassessed, they said.

The Wire Staff

Forest clearances to the Netala bypass and the felling of trees near Jhala must be scrapped and all projects in the Bhagirathi Eco-sensitive Zone must be reassessed, they said.

‘illegal untenable’ m m joshi karan singh others oppose projects under char dham highway

Mountainsides being blasted off and cleared to make way for the Char Dham highway. Photo: PTI/File

New Delhi: Forest clearances granted to two projects in Uttarkashi as part of the Char Dham Highway ought to be recalled and all work here must be re-evaluated in the wake of disasters such as the Dharali flash flood, a group of people including former ministers Murli Manohar Joshi and Karan Singh have urged the government.

Cautioning against “irreversible ecological damage” to the Bhagirathi Eco-sensitive Zone (BESZ) in northern Uttarakhand, the BJP's Joshi, Congress leader and former Jammu and Kashmir sadr-e-riyasat Singh alongside ex-MP Rewati Raman Singh and Sangh parivar ideologue K.N. Govindacharya among others have demanded that the clearances to the Netala bypass and the felling of trees near Jhala village be scrapped.

Additionally they have called for “all ongoing and proposed works” in the BESZ to be “subjected to a fresh, cumulative environmental and disaster-risk assessment, reflecting post-disaster realities and climate-change impacts”, the Times of India quoted their letter to Union road transport minister Nitin Gadkari, environment minister Bhupender Yadav, defence minister Rajnath Singh, the Uttarakhand forest department secretary and the Border Roads Organisation's director as saying.

Their letter comes against the backdrop of environmentalists and activists repeatedly criticising the implementation of the Char Dham project as dangerous to the local environment as well as people and the deadly August 2025 Dharali flash flood that occurred within the BESZ. The disaster saw debris crash down a hill stream that empties into the Bhagirathi river and destroy part of the Dharali village.

Part of the Char Dham project involves a proposed road between the Hina and Tekla villages in the BESZ that would bypass the Netala slope. A high-powered committee appointed by the Supreme Court had advised against building this stretch back in 2020, but the Uttarakhand government granted it in-principle forest clearance last year, weeks before the Dharali disaster, the Indian Express has reported.

The other component that the former ministers and others have flagged is the proposed clearing of some 42 hectares of forest between the Jhala and Bhaironghati villages in the BESZ as part of a road-widening exercise. The Uttarakhand government approved this project in December, sparking local protests, the Hindustan Times had reported.

Calling the clearances “illegal, untenable and violative of binding constitutional, statutory and judicial mandates”, the letter also said that they violate the ‘precautionary principle’, which “mandates that where there is a reasonable likelihood of serious or irreversible environmental harm, the absence of absolute scientific certainty cannot be a ground for proceeding with destructive activities”.

“In the post-Dharali context, the continuation of road widening, hill cutting and deforestation in the Bhagirathi valley directly violates this principle. Both the Netala and Jhala-Jangla clearances proceed though the disaster risk remains unchanged, which is completely wrong,” the Times quoted them as saying.

This is not the first time Joshi and Singh have opposed developments pertaining to the Char Dham project.

This article went live on March fourth, two thousand twenty six, at thirty-six minutes past nine at night.

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