A formal objection to three proposed roads in Bhopal’s forested southern landscape has exposed a difficult planning question: how should a growing city expand when its remaining forests also function as breeding habitat and movement corridors for tigers? The proposed alignments through the Chandanpura-Mendora-Mendori landscape in the Samardha forest division have been challenged on ecological, engineering and public safety grounds, with the objector arguing that road construction could fragment a wildlife system connecting Ratapani Tiger Reserve with Bhopal and Kheoni Wildlife Sanctuary in Dewas district.
The objection has been submitted to the Madhya Pradesh town and country planning department in response to the draft Bhopal Development Plan 2047. It seeks the removal of three roads from the plan: the 60-metre Akbarpur-Chandanpura-Mendora/Mendori road, the 24-metre Chichli-Chandanpura road and the 45-metre Bairagarh Chichli-Kerwa Ghat-Mendora alignment.
The issue is not simply whether individual roads can be engineered through forested terrain. It is whether the development plan treats the landscape as vacant land available for transport infrastructure or as a connected ecological system whose value extends beyond the boundaries of a single forest division. The objection argues that rugged terrain, steep forest slopes and the proximity of the Kerwa reservoir create risks that are simultaneously ecological, technical and related to public safety.
According to the representation cited in the report, the Samardha-Kerwa-Kaliasot forest belt supports a rare urban wildlife landscape in which tigers have coexisted with Bhopal’s expanding population. Prabhash Jetley, who submitted the objection, said that 23 tigers live in and around the city, including eight within Bhopal’s municipal limits. The figures underline the unusual character of Bhopal’s urban edge: forest habitat is not located far outside the metropolitan area but lies alongside areas experiencing development pressure.
That proximity makes road planning particularly consequential. Roads do more than occupy a strip of land. Their construction can divide continuous habitat, while subsequent traffic can alter how animals move through a landscape. In the objection, Jetley said increased vehicular movement could disrupt tiger movement, fragment breeding and cub-rearing areas, and increase the risk of human-tiger encounters. Such encounters, he said, have occurred in the area over the past two and a half decades.
The available report does not establish that the proposed roads will definitely cause these outcomes, nor does it provide a completed environmental assessment of each alignment. It does, however, document a specific planning dispute over whether the proposed routes are compatible with the ecological functions attributed to the landscape. That distinction matters. A development plan can reserve land for future infrastructure long before construction begins, but the consequences of that reservation may be difficult to reverse once road corridors, adjoining plots and new access routes begin shaping development.
The three proposed widths also indicate the scale of infrastructure contemplated. A 60-metre road reservation represents a substantial intervention in a forested setting, while the 24-metre and 45-metre alignments would also create sizeable corridors for construction and movement. The objection is therefore directed not at a minor local road improvement but at a network of planned routes that could change access and development patterns across the Chandanpura, Mendora, Mendori and Kerwa areas.
The planning problem is intensified by uncertainty over the legal and administrative status of the land. The representation raises questions about the identification of revenue forests and deemed forests, and refers to proceedings before the National Green Tribunal concerning the mapping, notification and protection of deemed forest areas. It seeks clarity on whether such areas should be transferred to the Forest Department in accordance with applicable directions.
This is an institutional question as much as an environmental one. Town and country planning authorities prepare development plans and identify future infrastructure corridors. The Forest Department is responsible for forest administration and wildlife protection. The National Tiger Conservation Authority and the Wildlife Institute of India contribute to tiger-estimation and conservation frameworks. When the land in question has an unclear or contested classification, the absence of coordination between these systems can become a source of conflict during plan preparation.
The report places the objection in the context of Madhya Pradesh’s wider tiger-conservation role. The state recorded 785 tigers in the 2022 national tiger estimation, the highest count among Indian states, according to figures attributed to the National Tiger Conservation Authority and the Wildlife Institute of India. Ratapani Tiger Reserve was notified in December 2024, adding to the significance of the ecological connection described in the objection between the reserve, Bhopal’s forest belt and other wildlife areas.
The numbers also reveal why the Bhopal case cannot be treated as an isolated dispute over a single municipal road. Eight tigers are reported to be within the city’s municipal limits, while 23 are reported in and around Bhopal. The landscape described in the objection sits at the intersection of metropolitan administration and a larger conservation geography. Its management therefore involves questions about city boundaries, reserve connectivity, forest classification and the design of transport infrastructure.
At the same time, the supplied material does not provide the full draft development plan, detailed route maps, traffic projections, engineering studies, environmental impact assessments or an official response from the planning department or Forest Department. It is consequently not possible on the available evidence to determine whether alternative alignments have been examined, whether mitigation measures have been proposed or how the authorities have assessed the road widths and their cumulative impact.
That missing information is central to the public debate. A road alignment through a sensitive area cannot be evaluated only by its engineering feasibility or projected transport benefit. The assessment must also establish how the route interacts with breeding areas, cub-rearing zones, movement paths, reservoir edges and existing human settlements. It must clarify whether the proposed road network would create a single point of disturbance or a connected band of development pressure across the forest belt.
The objection seeks a different planning approach. It calls for the Kerwa, Kaliasot, Chandanpura, Mendora and Mendori forests to be incorporated into a protected wildlife buffer linked to Ratapani Tiger Reserve. It also seeks a zero-construction buffer zone, stronger tiger monitoring and preservation of wildlife corridors. These are demands made by the objector, not measures that the authorities have announced in the supplied report.
Their significance lies in the way they shift the planning discussion from individual permissions to landscape-level management. If wildlife movement extends across municipal and administrative boundaries, protection based only on isolated parcels may not address the full corridor. Conversely, if infrastructure is planned without establishing where movement and breeding areas lie, later mitigation may be more difficult and expensive.
Bhopal’s case also demonstrates why urban development plans are important environmental documents. They do not merely regulate building activity within settled areas. By reserving land for roads and defining future growth directions, they can determine which forests remain connected, where traffic enters previously less accessible areas and how the urban edge expands. Decisions made in a plan for 2047 can therefore influence ecological conditions well before the plan reaches its stated horizon.
The immediate question is whether the Madhya Pradesh town and country planning department will examine the objection through a coordinated process involving planning, forest and wildlife authorities. The record will need to establish the legal status of the affected forests, the ecological role of the proposed corridors, the engineering constraints around the Kerwa reservoir and the availability of alternatives. Until those elements are publicly clarified, the dispute remains a contested planning proposal rather than a settled decision.
What the evidence confirms is that Bhopal’s expansion is taking place alongside a forest landscape reported to support significant tiger presence, including within municipal limits. What remains unresolved is whether the three proposed roads can be reconciled with that landscape or whether their reservation would fragment the ecological connections on which the reported coexistence depends. The next material developments will be the authorities’ response to the objection, the treatment of forest-status questions and any formal mapping or assessment of the proposed alignments.
