National Board for Wildlife finalized

The government has finalized the constitution of the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL), a statutory body which oversees the implementation of wildlife policies in the country.
Sources in Environment Ministry said the Prime Minister's Office has approved the reconstitution of the Board comprising 47 members and the file has been sent to the Law Ministry for final vetting. The Prime Minister is the Chairman of the Board.
Sources said the Board has several wildlife experts prominent among them being V V Savarkar and P R Chinoy, both former Director of the Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun.
The reconstituted Board is likely to be notified in a day or two, sources said.

The Supreme Court had earlier asked the government to constitute the full Wildlife Board as the earlier one did not have full members.
According to sources, the government had constituted NBWL in July and nominated only one NGO and two experts against the required five NGOs and ten eminent conservationists, ecologists and environmentalists.
The government's move had come under severe criticism from the apex court which remarked that prima facie they found that the Environment Ministry had violated the law while constituting the Board and had issued a notice to the central government to explain the stand.
The apex court had observed that government had not constituted the entire Wildlife Board, following which the Environment Ministry has done the needful.