New Delhi, May 31 (IANS) The government Thursday said it will soon bring forth a presidential order to ban tourist and other commercial activities in the proposed buffer zone in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to protect aboriginal tribes such as the Jarawas.
The decision was taken in a union cabinet meeting here chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
“Tourist establishments would be prohibited and other commercial activity would be regulated in the buffer zone to protect the aboriginal tribes from undesirable influence,” Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni told reporters after the meeting.
Further, the violations of the five km buffer zone will invite penalty in terms of three-seven years of jail and a fine of Rs.10,000, she said.
This, she said, would act as a deterrent to unauthorised entry into the reserved area.
She said the government would promulgate the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Protection of Aboriginal Tribes) Amendment Regulation 2012 under article 240 of the constitution.
The union territory administration had issued a notification Oct 30, 2007, declaring an area of up to five km radius around the Jarawa tribal reserve as a buffer zone and banned any commercial activity within it.
However, the Calcutta High Court had quashed the notification. The matter is now in the Supreme Court.
Soni said the presidential promulgation could come even as the matter was sub judice.
