Hyatt Hotel Near Kaziranga: Is the Luxury Resort a Threat to the Eco-Sensitive Zone?

DEBASHIS GOSWAMI

Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the floodplains of Assam, has long been one of the world’s greatest conservation success stories. It is home to the world’s largest population of great Indian one-horned rhinoceroses in addition to the Bengal tigers, wild Asian elephants, and water buffaloes. But the greatest threat to this sanctuary today isn’t armed poachers, but an organized campaign by state authorities and corporate hospitality giants to sell the park’s precarious perimeter.

The controversy is largely over the Assam government’s contentious decision to cut down the Eco Sensitive Zone around Kaziranga from the Supreme Court mandated standard 10 kilometer radius to merely one kilometer radius. Though state officials have defended this cut as a means of freeing up municipal infrastructure for neighboring towns like Bokakhat, recent news files and ground realities indicate a far more worrying motive: to sanction construction of high end resorts in important wildlife corridors.

Why the squeeze on Kaziranga’s lifeline?

One of the main biological functions of an Eco Sensitive Zone is to serve as a buffer between protected habitats and human settlements. This buffer is vital for survival in Kaziranga. Every monsoon the swollen Brahmaputra River floods some 80 percent of the low lying core of the park, forcing thousands of rhinos, elephants and deer to migrate south across the national highway to the higher ground of the Karbi Anglong hills.

By shrinking the protective buffer down to 1 kilometer, heavy commercial construction is basically legalized right on the edge of these historical migration routes. Permanent concrete structures in these areas will block animal dispersal routes, trap wildlife during floods and cause severe human-animal conflicts, warn conservationists and local environmentalists.

The shift in protection:

1 Mandatory Supreme Court Default- 10km protective buffer radius.

2 State govt proposal- 1km reduced boundary.

3 Direct impact- Legalizes commercial construction across vital corridors.

4 Primary sufferers- Migratory Asian elephant, rhinoceros and local indigenous peoples.

Hyatt Group: Corporate negligence and environmental disregard:

The 115-room, five star luxury hotel planned at Inglay Pothar has drawn the most international criticism of all the commercial developments coming into the area. The resort is being developed through a Public Private Partnership by the Assam Tourism Development Corporation and Juniper Hotels, a public hospitality company with Hyatt Hotels Corporation as a major investor and strategic partner.

The site chosen for the luxury hotel, Inglay Pathar, is known to generations of local villagers as Hati Pathar. Literally, the “playground of elephants”. Hyatt and its affiliates are accused of blatantly violating environmental principles and corporate social responsibility guidelines by supporting a project less than 1 km from the boundary of the national park:

Disturbance in animal corridors: Building a high capacity, multi storey luxury hotel in an active elephant route disrupts natural behavior and displaces endangered species.

Dispossession of Indigenous Communities: More than 45 Indigenous Adivasi families roughly 400 to 500 people, whose families have worked these rice fields for generations, have been adversely impacted by the land purchase. Reports claim that armed police battalions are deployed to fence off agricultural area and prevent local farmers from getting their crops.

Bypassing consent due to diligence: The development proceeded without securing the free, prior and informed consent of the effected indigenous communities.

International Human Rights Law: In March 2026, international civil society organizations filed a formal complaint with the U.S. National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises against Hyatt Hotels Corporation, alleging serious environmental and human rights abuses associated with the project.

Global hotel brands like Hyatt regularly make elaborate corporate sustainability pledges touting “eco conscious hospitality,” but their actions at Kaziranga tell a different story. When asked about the project, corporate representatives often refer to state land clearances or non controlling investment structures. Yet embracing public private property allocations in a wildlife habitat suggests a willingness to trade off environmental integrity for the sake of widening commercial footprints.

Now the question is, Why is there such intense government backing for luxury development inside a fragile eco zone or is there any hidden agenda? Even common people are not allowed to enter, to see, taking photos or videos there.

The state government has said it wants to make Assam a global hub for “high yield, luxury eco tourism”. Longterm 99 year land leases guaranty lease earnings, luxury tax revenue and private capital inflows under public-private partnership arrangements for state tourism agencies. But shrinking the Eco Sensitive Zone to 1 km creates a handy legal loophole that keeps these commercial projects out of the purview of the judiciary.

The proposed cut down of Kaziranga’s Eco Sensitive Zone to make way for swanky resorts is indicative of a disturbing trend in environmental management. “Big corporations, like Hyatt, sponsoring projects that displace indigenous farmers and threaten migration corridors for animals are undermining global conservation,” the spokesperson said.

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Ecotourism is focused on the conservation of ecosystems and the support of local communities. When wildlife corridors are replaced with concrete boundary walls, armed guard checkpoints and plush facilities, that notion is turned on its head. If this trend is not checked by international regulatory accountability or judicial interventions, Kaziranga risks turning into a remote forest island surrounded by commercial real estate.

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