Thrissur: If the present ban on photography by visitors at Guruvayur Devaswom’s (GD) Punnathur Kotta Elephant Sanctuary here continues to be in place for long, the devaswom will be losing several lakhs of rupees in revenue.
According to an RTI reply, GD got a revenue of Rs 1.05 crore on account of passes issued to visitors allowing them to take photographs of pachyderms in the past 10 years. The average revenue per annum on this account in the last three years is nearly Rs 12 lakh.
V K Venkitachalam,the Secretary of Heritage Animal Task Force (HATF), who filed the RTI query told DC that the managing committee of the GD took the decision on September 3, in the wake of a report by a well-known UK website about the alleged ill-treatment meted out to pachyderms in the sanctuary in August.
“The website had come up with some photographs of a chained elephant trying to move its hind legs with much difficulty and that invited ire globally and the GD had no other option than to ban photography in the sanctuary to prevent such pictures being captured at the sanctuary,” he added.
However, speaking to DC, GD Administrator B Mahesh said that the article and pictures appeared online and had nothing to do with the decision of the GD to ban photography inside the sanctuary.
“We had an issue with the visitors going near the elephants to take selfies and putting their lives in danger. So we took a decision to put in place a complete ban on clicking pictures even with a mobile camera,” he said.
He claimed that the pictures that appeared online in the foreign website were old pictures and raised doubts about their timing and even some details in the online story.
“More than the loss in revenue, we are concerned about the safety of the visitors,” Mr Mahesh said.
Download the all new Deccan Chronicle app for Android and iOS to stay up-to-date with latest headlines and news stories in politics, entertainment, sports, technology, business and much more from India and around the world.
