RANCHI–The state forest, environment and wildlife department has approached the Union ministry of forests and the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) for assistance in its Gaj Pariyojana, scheduled to take off in the second half of 2016.
In a tripartite meeting held in New Delhi late last week on the Centre’s ongoing Project Elephant, the state has requisitioned for specialist elephant trackers and surveyors for identifying the new routes the elephants are taking in recent years.
“It is a time consuming study and we will need highly skilled experts. We spoke to WII and they gave their consent. An elephant expert from south India will be engaged into the project along with WII surveyors,” Rajiv Ranjan, chief conservator of forests (CCF) wildlife said.
Ranjan said the department is hopeful of beginning the groundwork tentatively by May end. The team is expected to visit Jharkhand next month.
In January this year, the Raghubar Das government announced of beginning Gaj Pariyojana along the lines of Chattisgarh.
The primary objective of the project was to preserve the elephant herds and their transit routes into Bihar, Chattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal. The state has in total 12 inter and intra-state elephant corridors, according to department data.
Explaining the need to re-identify the corridors, chief wildlife warden Pradeep Kumar said the human development is gradually eliminating the transit routes of elephants.
“At times, the jumbos travel kilometers through their routes and suddenly bump onto a village or a settlement. They get confused and scared and charge at the humans,” Kumar said.