Chennai: Following frequent deaths due to increasing human-animal conflict in the Nilgiris, Gudalur legislator M. Thiravidamani on Friday submitted a petition to the Forests secretary seeking immediate action in the matter.
In his representation, he said the people of his constituency were subjected to severe stress due to periodic straying of elephants and tigers. Residents of Gudalur have also petitioned the local foresters on the issue, but no action had been taken till date. In February and March alone, seven persons had died due to attacks by animals. Further, 63 elephants are straying into the residential plots and they often raid agricultural crops, he said. .
The government has allocated funds to create elephant proof trenches in The Nilgiris, but the incomplete works and failure to ensure quality forests have led to frequent straying of wild animals, the legislator said. Refuting the MLA’s allegation, a senior forest officer said due to tremendous political pressure every year a tiger is eliminated following reports of felines turning man eaters.
The government on its part has increased compensation to victims of human — animal conflict from Rs 1.50 lakh to Rs 3.00 lakh and for crop damages from Rs 0.15 lakh to Rs 0.25 lakh per acre. Further a corpus of Rs 2.50 crore had been created and every year close to Rs 10 crore is spent for habitat improvement and another Rs 4 crore as compensation to the bereaved families. The public and politicians fail to understand that wildlife and human beings cannot co exist. In all these years, the number of tribes getting killed is very minimal and they adapt themselves, whereas residents settled in buffer zones of forests are prone to attacks by wild animals, the officer said. As part of efforts to reduce man-animal conflict and improve infrastructure, for the past two years Rs 17.20 crore had been spent every fiscal, the officer said.
