Bangalore / Belgaum, December 11: (Karnataka News):
Forest Minister Ishwara Khandre said in the Legislative Council today that construction of barricade is being undertaken at a cost of Rs 200 crore to avoid human-elephant conflict in the state.
Answering to member K. Harish Kumar’s question about dot marking, he said that the work of installing 640 km of railway barricade is in progress to prevent elephants from coming into the inhabited area, and already 312 km of barricade has been installed with a total cost of Rs 200 crore. He said that the work of installing railway barricade is going on at the cost, compensation of Sh90 per cent has been distributed to the farmers whose crops were damaged due to elephant menace, and more compensation will be given for the loss of human lives.
Warning boards about the presence of elephants have been installed on both sides of the national highways in the dense forest area in the state to prevent the menace of forest. An elephant task force consisting of one officer/staff from each district has been formed in Hassan, Kodagu, Chikkamagaluru, Mysore and Kodagu, Chamarajanagar, Ramanagara and Bengaluru districts where the forest menace is increasing.
To increase the availability of water within forest areas for wild animals, wildlife habitat is being developed by construction and rehabilitation of sanctuaries. This prevents wild animals and other wild animals from coming out of the forest. In order to protect and develop pastures in forest areas, due to the dense growth of lantana and eupatorium weeds in most forest areas, the availability of grass in the forest is significantly reduced due to the severe obstacle to the growth of grass, so the lantana and eupatorium weeds that have grown in the grass growing areas have been removed and cleaned to enable the growth of supplementary grass for the forest.
Construction/maintenance of solar energy fence, construction/maintenance of elephant barrier ditch and construction of barricade using railway tracks has been undertaken to prevent forest animals from coming out of the forest area. Rapid Task Force Teams are being formed and maintained for emergency management of forest disaster. Deforestation teams have been formed and work is being done to restore the forest to forest. Information is communicated through a wireless network. A 24-hour information center has been established to collect information about forests. An adult female elephant in the forest group was identified and fitted with a radio collar and information about the movements of the elephants was given to the people through SMS and WhatsApp to avoid human loss and human injury. Pundanes who are defrauding the public are being identified, arrested and relocated from time to time. He said that people are being made aware by calling a public relations meeting in the areas where the threat of forest fires is high.
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