Wildlife Conservation Plan ! Impact Area, Maihar Cement Plant, Maihar WILDLIFE CONSERVATION PLAN Maihar CEMENT PLANT MAIHAR Executive Summary 1. Maihar Cement is situated at Sarlanagar, Maihar, District Satna in the State of Madhya Pradesh with licensed production capacity of 5 Million TPA (3 MTPA Clinker & 5 MTPA Cement). Maihar Cement at Sarlanagar Madhya Pradesh, currently operates 2 Units: Unit-1 consists of 2 Kiln lines each producing around 2350 TPD clinker and unit-2 has one kiln producing ~ 4500 TPD clinker whereas present Cement production is 5 Million TPA. Since the production capacity in cement and clinker section is being proposed to increase under EIA notification 2006, and the environment clearance needs ‘Wildlife Conservation Plan’ owing to presence of Schedule I animals in 10 km radii Impact Area around the Maihar Cement Plant, hence the need of preparing ‘Wildlife Conservation Plan’. 2. Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF & CC) issued EC TOR {F. No. I A- J-11011/113/2018-1A-II(I) dated 19th April 2018) for the proposed increase in clinker and cement production (as detailed above). Clause 5(v) of the Generic Terms of reference of the above mentioned 19th April, 2018 letter lays down that ‘Wildlife Conservation Plan duly authenticated by the Chief Wildlife Warden of the State Government for conservation of Schedule-I animals, if any exist in the study area.’ The present document - the ‘Wildlife Conservation Plan’ for the ten km radius around the Maihar Cement Plant at Sarlanagar Maihar, district Satna in the State of Madhya Pradesh has been prepared to meet the aforementioned need. 3. The broad objectives this Wildlife Conservation Plan attempts to address are: • To provide a relatively stress-free habitat to wildlife in the Impact Area that would be capable of meeting the basic needs of resident wildlife. • To provide habitat supplement to spillover population of wild animals from Project Area to the Impact Area. • To provide safe spillover corridors for wildlife from Impact Area to relatively rich neighbouring forest areas. • To provide safe guarding measures and protection of wildlife from unsavoury elements. • Providing site specific, need based, and participatory eco-development inputs to local stakeholders for reducing their resource dependency on forests and for eliciting their support towards conservation in the area. • Capacity Building of local people, particularly Eco-Development Committee members. • To provide the local Forest Department officials / staff with required resources to help implement this plan. ix A. P. Dubey / Safi Akhtar Khan Wildlife Conservation Plan ! Impact Area, Maihar Cement Plant, Maihar • While increasing man-animal conflict is an outcome of shrinkage, fragmentation and deterioration of habitats, it has caused destruction of wildlife and generated animosity against wild animals and protected areas. This is a crucial management issue, which needs to be addressed through innovative approaches. 4. Maihar Cement is situated at Sarlanagar (Maihar), Dist. Satna in the State of Madhya Pradesh. Maihar Cement Plant lies at Longitude: 24° 10’ N to 24° 15’ N and Latitude: 80° 45’ E to 80° 50’ E and is covered under Topo sheet No.63D/16. The area lies in the region of Kymore Hill range. The terrain of the area is partly hilly and partly plain. The elevation of the area above the mean sea level is 600 meter where as cement plant lies on 460 m contour. 5. The area falls in Kymore Plateau & Satpura Hills agro-Climatic zone of Madhya Pradesh state in Satna district. (Source: Agro-climatic Zones of India under National Agricultural Research Project (NARP),. The climate in the study area is hot and semi-arid and characterised with seasonal variations of wind pattern.The climate in the study area is hot and semi-arid and characterised with seasonal variations of wind pattern. The zone is wheat and rice zone with mixed red and black soils (Medium) and rainfall in the range of 1000-1400 mm. The year is clearly divided in four meteorological seasons over India, viz., pre-monsoon (March to May), monsoon (June to Sept), post—monsoon (Oct to Dec) and winter (Jan to Feb). Brief facts - • Average wind speed is 0.52 m/s & predominant wind direction is from North-North West direction • Daily mean temperature varied from 75°C to 339°C • Relative humidity varied from 16 % to 85 % 6. Geology - Limestone exposures are seen in nalla cuttings & surface-exposed at some places. The deposits of Maihar cement Limestone mines, Bhadanpur belongs to Rohtas Formations of Semri series of Vindhyan super group. This formation is made up of main litho logic units of Limestone & shale, which lay as laminated sedimentary deposits. Two sets of joint pattern are clearly visible in working faces in mining lease areas. One, along the bedding plane and the other set vertical to the bedding plane lead variation in dip amount which does not affect significantly during mining of limestone. Cavities in the Limestone strata are developed to the vertical planes which are filled with soil occasionally and sometimes remain void. 7. Village’s maximum respondents belongs to age group of 30 to 45 years followed by age group 45 to 60 years, above 60 years and 18 to 30 years and about 94.27% selected respondents were male and rests 5.73% were female. They fall under different social groups in study area villages. It was found that in the population of households (HH) in OBC Category was 33.21% followed by SC HH with 21.37%, 45.04% General and 0.38% ST social groups. Overall in both core and buffer zone villages the population of General category was more followed by OBC, General and ST. This is indicative of the fact that the area is dominated by General and OBC groups. The respondents observed are mostly below the poverty line. Respondents were largely distributed in x A. P. Dubey / Safi Akhtar Khan Wildlife Conservation Plan ! Impact Area, Maihar Cement Plant, Maihar Hindu (about 96.95%) and very meagre percentage of Muslim (about 3.05%). Less than 0 % population was reported to be in other religion Buddha, Christen and Jain in the project study area. Most respondents reported possession of Kachha house (about 70.61%) followed by about 12.98% with mixed house, about 15.65% with Pucca house and very few are having zuggi or shanty i.e. less than 3%. Proportion of landholders household is higher than landless. There were more than 79.01% household reported as land holders in study area. In context of development, shift of resources move away from the primary sectors (Agriculture, forestry, fishery, dairy, poultry, mining etc.) to the manufacturing sector or the secondary sector. 8. The proposed expansion would influence the economic aspect of the society in Impact Area and also through increased revenues. Some of unskilled personnel would get direct or indirect employment in the operations and maintenance of the project. Further, there would be many services that are essential to a cement industry including transportation, catering, courier, office staffing, afforestation, dust suppression, sanitation, taxi conveyance, vehicle maintenance, etc, that generates self employment and entrepreneurial opportunity for local people generating immense economic benefits. In addition to the direct and indirect employment opportunity, Maihar Cement is already, through the CSR initiatives, providing various skills development opportunity through vocational training that would enable people become self employed or entrepreneurs. Self help group activities is also implemented to empower rural women and make them self sufficient. 9. Ecology, Biodiversity & Forests - Biodiversity conservation ls important as all species are interlinked, even it this is not immediately visible or even known, and our survival depends on this fine balance that exists within nature. We try to look briefly at the different aspects.. 10. Protected Areas / Special Areas: No National park, Wildlife Sanctuary, Biosphere Reserve, Tiger/ Elephant Reserve, Migratory Corridors, creeks, mangroves in the Impact area of 10 km radius. However, patches of Protected Forest (PF), some village water bodies / ponds and one river exist in the study area. 11. Forests - in this area as per Champion and Seth's Classification, 1964, is Southern Tropical Dry Deciduous Forest comprising primarily the following forest types: • 5B-C1b - Southern Tropical Dry Deciduous Dry Teak Forest & • 5B-C2c - Northern Tropical Dry Mixed Deciduous Forest. Subtypes: 5E2- Boswellia forest and 5 E9- Dry Bamboo drakes.. 12.Flora - A floral community in the Amilia and Maihar found is Diospyros me/anoxylon - Lannea coromanc/e/ica - Lagerstroemia pan/iflora. Common plants found in the area encompasses Acacia aruculoformis,Pithece/lobium dulce, Syzygium cuminii, Mangifera indica, Phoenix sylvestris, Tamarindusindica, Dalbergia sisoo, Prosopis julif/ora, Prosopls cineraria, Hibiscus rosa-sinensis, Calotropisprocera., Vitex negundo, Lantana camera, Zizyphus sp., Achyranthes aspera, A/ternanterasaseI/is, Argemone mexicana, Ocimum sanctum, Solanum xi A. P. Dubey / Safi Akhtar Khan Wildlife Conservation Plan ! Impact Area, Maihar Cement Plant, Maihar xanthocarpum, Cassia tora,Parthenium hysterophorus, Side rhombifolia, Tridax procumbens, Cynodon dacty/on andHetropogon contortus are generally found in the area. It is also observed that, apart from weedspecies many locations are invaded by Vilayat babool i.e. Prosopis jul/f/ora and Gulmendi i.e.Lantana camera. 13. There are no endangered and endemic species recorded inside the Impact Area. 14.Threatened Plant Species - In the area study none of the threatened species were observed during the field visits and data collection. 15.Core zone comprises 25 greenbelt plantation species, 12 species of herbs, shrubs and grasses and 6 common faunal species. Buffer zone encompasses 158 floral species, No species can be designated as a threatened / endemic to the area. Core zone comprises 6 common faunal species. In the buffer zone, 65 faunal species have been enlisted on the basis of primary evidences and secondary data.