Villagers lay gravel road near Kolleru bird sanctuary, threaten wildlife staff

Hyderabad, Dec 10: Some villagers allegedly re-laid a gravel road within the Atapaka Bird Sanctuary of Kolleru in Krishna District and then assaulted a team of wildlife employees, who tried to stop the illegal activity. News of the incident surfaced today when the Wildlife Divisional Management, Eluru, registered cases under Section 27, 29 and 51 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972 against the accused. Only last month, the villagers had laid the first layer of the gravel road while ignoring protests from the wildlife officials. The sanctuary area in which the road was laid falls within the +5 contour of the Kolleru Lake. The Deputy Ranger G. Eswara Rao said that five persons, led by Komatilanka Sarpanch Jonnagadda Syambabu, supervised the laying of gravel on the road on Monday midnight. The villagers laid at least 200 metres of the road.