A herd of wild elephants seen at Kaziranga National Park. File.
| Photo Credit: ANI
Assam Congress president and MP Gaurav Gogoi on Monday (September 7, 2026) questioned why the Assam government has removed an allegedly incomplete 2022 gazette notification on Kaziranga National Park’s animal corridors from its official website.
In an X post, he said that the Panbari Wildlife Corridor was missing from the version of the gazette notification uploaded on the government’s (Environment, Forest and Climate Change Department) portal.
“The full notification on the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve’s website spans pages 1,328 to 1,455. The version published on the State portal stopped at page 1,426, omitting the 29 pages covering the Panbari corridor. This coincides with reports of rare earth element deposits in the same belt,” Mr Gogoi said.
“There needs to be complete transparency on why an incomplete notification was uploaded on the government’s portal and went unrectified for four years, and why it was pulled down the moment it drew attention. The Assam government should also answer for the delay in notifying the nine crucial animal corridors,” he said.
The State Congress president pointed out that the Supreme Court-constituted Central Empowered Committee has been seeking action on all nine corridors for years.
“This is not an isolated lapse. The government signs MoUs (memoranda of understanding) for luxury hotels beside the park, stays indifferent to illegal mining, and arrests the activist who dares to be critical,” Mr Gogoi said, referring to the detention of land rights activist Pranab Doley under the National Security Act for opposing a luxury hotel project on the paddy fields of indigenous farmers at Kaziranga.
Park-hill link
The 2022 gazette notification identified nine wildlife corridors linking the rhino-ruled Kaziranga National Park to the hills of Karbi Anglong district. Crucially, the hills provide refuge for the animals whenever the park is flooded.
Issued on April 1, 2022, the gazette notification followed the recommendations of a government-appointed committee. Constituted on May 4, 2019, to identify and delineate the animal corridors between Kaziranga and Karbi Anglong, the panel submitted its report on August 28, 2019.
The nine corridors identified are Amguri, Bagori, Chirang, Deosur, Haldhibari, Harmati, Hatidandi, Kanchanjuri, and Panbari.
The notification’s opening section referred to all nine corridors, but the version made available online contained detailed descriptions and maps of eight. Panbari was missing.
The omission was conspicuous because the Panbari corridor runs through Methoni Tea Estate, which RCP Solutions and Services Pvt Ltd acquired from the Kolkata-based The Methoni Tea Company Ltd in 2022, the year of the gazette notification in question.
Assam regulatory records show that RCP Solutions and Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited, has been associated with the Methoni Tea Estate since 2022.
Congress, local organisations, and green activists also sniffed a connection between Panbari’s omission from the gazette notification and reports of rare earth element deposits in the Panbari-Geleki area of Karbi Anglong. The area is close to Kaziranga National Park.
An official response to the allegations regarding the gazette notification on Kaziranga’s animal corridors was awaited.
Published – September 08, 2026 12:31 pm IST
