As the Centre is expected to soon issue the final notification on ‘Ecologically Sensitive Areas’ (ESA) in the Western Ghats on the basis of the Kasturirangan committee report, the states through which the Western Ghats pass are pushing for relaxations. The Kasturirangan report is itself widely seen as a dilution of the recommendations of the Western Ghats Ecology Experts
Successive floods and landslides have hit the state since 2018. A expert committee had in 2012 recommended that the state declare districts in the Western Ghats ecologically sensitive