New railway line through MP tiger corridor gets in-principle forest nod

📌 Summary:

• The Union environment ministry's Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) granted in-principle (Stage-I) forest clearance for a new (third) railway line through the Satpura-Melghat tiger corridor — a critical pathway for tigers, sloth bears, leopards and deer
• The Central Railway proposal seeks diversion of 8.0357 hectares of forest land in the corridor, on the busy Itarsi-Nagpur route (Jujharpur-Dhodramohar section)
• Condition: final (Stage-II) clearance will be granted only after this and two other line-sections on the route get wildlife clearance from the Standing Committee of the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL); no work is permitted on forest land until final clearance
• The Itarsi-Nagpur broad-gauge double line is a key segment of the high-density Rajdhani corridor connecting Delhi with Chennai, Secunderabad, Bengaluru and Thiruvananthapuram; a third line is being added to enhance capacity
• In March 2026, the NTCA, Wildlife Institute of India (WII), MP forest department and railways made a joint inspection to assess mitigation measures such as wildlife overpasses
• WII has recommended several overpasses; the Itarsi-Nagpur and Ballarshah-Gondia routes see several wildlife deaths annually, making underpasses/overpasses crucial

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS3 Environment — balancing infrastructure development with wildlife conservation, the forest-clearance process, and mitigation of linear-infrastructure impacts on tiger corridors.

📝 Prelims Facts:

• Forest clearance under the Forest (Conservation) framework has two stages: Stage-I (in-principle) and Stage-II (final), processed by the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC)
• Wildlife clearance for projects in/near protected areas is given by the Standing Committee of the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL)
• NTCA = National Tiger Conservation Authority; WII = Wildlife Institute of India (Dehradun)
• Satpura and Melghat are tiger reserves (MP and Maharashtra respectively)

🔑 Key Term: Wildlife corridor — a strip of habitat connecting two larger habitats/protected areas, enabling animal movement, gene flow and range expansion.