India’s mega science project — the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) — will be delayed by almost two years.

The Union ministry of environment and forests has refused to give the nod for an underground laboratory at Singara in Tamil Nadu’s Nilgiris district as it falls in an elephant corridor and tiger reserve area.

The country’s biggest facility for basic sciences to be set up at a cost of Rs 950 crore was scheduled to begin its first physics experiment in 2012 but this will now have to be pushed to 2014.

The observatory has to be located underground because neutrinos produced by cosmic rays and natural radioactivity are near impossible to detect on the earth’s surface.

Neutrinos are elusive fundamental particles that hold the key to understanding the evolution of the universe as well as energy production in stars. One of the earliest laboratories to detect neutrinos underground in the world was located 2,000 metres deep at the Kolar Gold Field mines in Karnataka.

A suitable site must have low rainfall and humidity and the soil must be safe and stable for cavern construction.

Three sites in the Kambam valley in Tamil Nadu are now being considered.

The ministry has asked the Department of Atomic Energy, which proposed the project, to consider the Suruliyar falls in Theni district of Tamil Nadu.

“It’s too important a project for India to be abandoned,” said Professor Naba Mondal, INO spokesperson from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, which is coordinating the project. “Since we have to start identifying sites and begin the process to acquire environmental clearances, the project will be delayed by close to two years.”

With China and US also planning to build underground

laboratories, Mondal said India needs to speed up. “Since the physics is the same, other countries would have an edge over us.”

The INO project, initiated in 2006, will study atmospheric neutrinos produced by cosmic rays in the atmosphere. The neutrinos are key to understanding the evolution of the universe, energy production mechanisms in the sun and other stars.

In a letter to the INO authorities dated November 20, Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh said the observatory cannot be set up in Singara.

“I have considered all the points objectively and come to a conclusion that the Singara site would not be advisable and the alternate location suggested at Suruliyar should be seriously considered,” Ramesh said.

Mondal said: “Although it’s not an elephant corridor, Suruliyar is also closer to another wildlife sanctuary. Let’s see how the government responds.”