Why is it in the News?

The Supreme Court last week said it will review its April 2021 order to bury underground all power lines in the habitat of the Great Indian Bustard (GIB), after the Centre found the order “practically impossible to implement” over long distances.

About Great Indian Bustard:

• Great Indian Bustard (GIB) is an agro-grassland bird endemic to the Indian Subcontinent.
• Known locally as Godawan in Rajasthan, it is a Critically Endangered species as per the IUCN Red List.
• It belongs to the family Otididae and exhibits sexual dimorphism.
• The GIB is an omnivorous bird.
• The species has a current viable population of around 150 individuals in India and mainly survives in the Thar Desert of Rajasthan which holds about 100 individuals.
• Of the remaining individuals, these birds are found in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh respectively.
• With fewer than 150 individuals, they are caught in a deadly maze of power lines that crisscross its last refuge in the Kutch and Thar deserts of western India.

Why Do Power Lines Kill Bustards?

• Power lines pose a risk to all flying birds.
• In 2020, a study carried out by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) in 4,200 sq km of GIB habitat in and around Desert National Park (DNP) in Rajasthan estimated that power lines killed around 84,000 birds of multiple species every year.
• GIBs are especially vulnerable because of their narrow frontal vision and large size.
  • Unlike some birds that have a panoramic vision around the head, species like raptors and bustards have extensive blind areas above their heads.
  • When they stretch their head forward to scan the ground below, they fly blind in the direction of travel.

Arguments of the Centre:

• The Centre said taking lines of 66 KV and higher voltage underground was not feasible for the evacuation of bulk power due to constraints such as transmission losses, maintenance challenges, multiple cable joints, increased time requirements, and safety concerns.
• The cost implications of undergrounding all power lines in the large area identified are very heavy — running into many thousands of crores and the cost of externalities that will burden the nation was “huge” and “disproportionate”.
• Harnessing renewable power from high-potential areas of Rajasthan and Gujarat was “essential for meeting rising power demand and India’s international commitments on climate change”.

Other threats faced by GIB:

• Free-ranging dogs pose a significant threat to the Great Indian Bustard (GIB) population, particularly in the Thar landscape, with feral packs responsible for a substantial portion of Chinkara depredation in the Desert National Park (DNP) as of 2017.
• Although sporadic hunting of GIBs persists, the prevalent use of pesticides in agricultural areas poses a more substantial risk to the bird's survival.
• Additionally, habitat loss, particularly the decline of grasslands essential for nesting, and diminishing support from local communities are growing concerns.