A 600 MW solar power park, touted as Asia's first and largest, was on Thursday dedicated to the nation by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the state's Patan district, in a boost to India's efforts towards low carbon growth.

The solar power park with a power generation capacity of 600 MW, covering approximately 3,000 acres of wasteland bordering the Rann of Kutch, will generate two-thirds of India's total 900 MW of solar power production.

Gandhinagar: The Narmada canal’s movement towards Kutch has suddenly hit an environmental roadblock. Already under construction, the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd (SSNNL), which is Narmada project’s implementing agency, has now found to its utter bewilderment that it had never taken a crucial forest conservation Act clearance from the Government of India for Kutch branch canal’s 13 kilometre stretch falling outside the Wild Ass Sanctuary.

Birds Continue To Fall Prey Despite Arrest Of 9 Men

Ahmedabad: The forest department claimed to have cracked the case of the poaching of 64 lesser flamingos in Venasar village in the Little Rann of Kutch when its officials arrested nine people on January 4. They had even recovered the nets used to trap the birds, after TOI had reported the massacre.

Ahmedabad: The dead flamingos found in Venasar village were not the work of some desperately poor man’s attempt to feed his family. Given the fact that such a large number of birds were killed just before December 31, government officials fear that the massacre was ordered for a party to ring in the New Year. Someone apparently wanted to impress his guests by serving flamingo meat as a delicacy.

Ahmedabad: Winged visitors from Siberia, the Greater Flamingos, will get warning signals in form of reflectors while flying at night through hightension power transmission lines in the Khadir region of the Greater Rann of Kutch. The Gujarat Energy Transmission Company (Getco) on Friday began taking corrective measures after The Times of India reported on the death of scores of these birds along a recently electrified cable line.

AHMEDABAD: For some winged visitors a journey of over 2,000 km from Siberia comes to a deadly end just when they swoop in to land in the shallow waters of Kutch. Electric wires char their feathers and even result in death.

This phenomenon has been documented in a study 'Flamingo mortality due to collision with high tension electric wires in Gujarat' by Anika Tere, now with MS University and B M Parasarya of Agriculture University Anand.

National Aluminium Company (Nalco), the Orissa-headquartered and central government-owned company, has turned out to be the sole final bidder for Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation’s (GMDC) Rs 15,000-crore aluminium project in Kutch, Gujarat.

GANDHINAGAR: Gujarat is all set to tell its successful stories of conservation to the whole world. Be it Asiatic lions of Gir, the wild ass of Little Rann of Kutch or the whale sharks from Saurashtra coast, the conservation stories made successful with people's participation will soon find place in some of the best national and international wildlife journals. The details of the state's six most successful conservation stories have been documented by additional principal chief conservator of forests, social forestry, HS Singh.

The much-awaited roadway project at Rann of Kutch in Gujarat could not be discussed in the Standing Committee meeting of National Board For Wildlife (NBWL) on Friday in the absence of the site inspection report which was to be put up for the purpose.

Sources in NBWL, however, maintained that the project will be strongly opposed whenever put up as it will completely damage the eco system of the unique saline marsh.

India signed a loan agreement with the World Bank yesterday to bring funds for cleaning the Ganga.