Mangaluru: A new study has flagged methodological shortcomings and gaps in biodiversity and social-impact assessments in the Wildlife Institute of India’s (WII) environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the proposed doubling of the Tinaighat–Kulem railway line through the Western Ghats.Published in the ‘Journal of Threatened Taxa’ on Sunday, the study reviews WII’s 2025 report titled ‘Cumulative Environmental Impact Assessment on Wildlife Habitat and Ecological Values Due to Proposed Doubling of Railway Track from Tinaighat to Kulem in Northern Western Ghats’.The proposed railway line passes through Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary and Mollem National Park in Goa and Kali Tiger Reserve in Karnataka. These areas form part of the Western Ghats, a global biodiversity hotspot. The WII assessment was commissioned after the Supreme Court cancelled the project’s earlier wildlife clearance and the Central Empowered Committee recommended that the project be dropped, according to the study.The project’s first EIA, prepared by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in 2017, had been criticised for several deficiencies, including inaccuracies in biodiversity documentation. A review of that assessment was published in the same journal in 2020.The latest review, conducted by a multidisciplinary team of ecologists, social scientists and conservation practitioners, found that while the WII assessment addressed some shortcomings of the earlier report, it introduced other gaps through the exclusion of key taxa and deficiencies in survey methods.According to the study, the WII report did not assess freshwater fish, insects, arachnids and fungi. The omission of freshwater fish was particularly significant as the Western Ghats have more than 300 species and rank among India’s richest regions for freshwater-fish diversity, the researchers said. The review also found that the report lacked a social-impact assessment despite public opposition to the project. It said the EIA did not adequately examine possible effects on nearby villages, places of socioeconomic and cultural importance, or the potential health impact of coal transportation on local communities.The researchers further alleged that the EIA did not sufficiently assess effects on ecosystem integrity and resilience or meet some of its stated objectives. Although the report proposed evaluating the project’s impact on tiger and elephant movement, it did not adequately do so, the review said. This was despite camera traps recording adult tigers and cubs at multiple locations.The review also identified limitations in surveys covering plants, birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals. “It is extremely concerning to see so many obvious and serious lapses in the EIA for a project of this scale. The section on birds even reports species not found in India,” said Nisha Bhakat, wildlife researcher and archivist at the National Centre for Biological Sciences.Madhushri Mudke, postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Wildlife Studies, Bengaluru, said the Western Ghats were home to several endemic amphibians dependent on specialised habitats. “Environmental impact assessments must be rigorous enough to capture the biodiversity they are meant to protect,” she said.
