Shillong, June 28: With man-elephant conflicts on the rise in Meghalaya, the state government is in the process of notifying them under ‘State Declared Disaster’
The forest department is also making efforts to reduce man-elephant conflict by creating more wild life corridors with the latest victim being a BSF officer.
A wild elephant trampled to death the BSF sub inspector and injured another constable in Dalu, West Garo Hills on Wednesday.
West Garo Hills SP Abraham Sangma said that on June 26, the BSF officials reported to the officer-in-charge Dalu police station that the BSF Sub Inspector Ranbir Singh and GD constable Rayman Ram of 100 Bn/BSF, Dalu BOP were attacked by a wild elephant around 5.10 am while they were on duty in Indo- Bangladesh border. As result, the SI died on the spot and constable sustained grievous injuries. Both the deceased and the injured were brought to Tura Civil Hospital for post mortem and treatment respectively.
A senior forest official dealing with wild life said on Friday that as soon as it is notified, the man-elephant conflict will come under disaster.
“Compensation for the victims will be faster like other disasters including flood”, the official added.
Besides, the forest department has notified six areas under elephant corridors and three more will be notified.
Recently, the state government has raised ex-gratia to victims from Rs 5 lakh to 10 lakh.
Chief Minister Conrad Sangma had informed the State Assembly in February this year that the government is conducting a survey of all animals and birds in the state and the current population of elephants is 1800 which also move to Bangladesh and Assam.
A government document said elephant is a wide-ranging animal which moves long distances in search of food. The weight of Asian elephant is around 2000-5000 kg and it needs up to 150 kilograms of food and 190 litres of water a day. Hence to satiate its hunger, it needs to move to new areas and the normal range of one elephant herd is 170-320 kms.
“Expansion of human settlements and agricultural fields across all districts of Meghalaya has resulted in widespread loss of elephant habitat, degraded forage, reduced landscape connectivity. As their habitats shrink, elephants are forced to move outside jungles into areas closer to human habitations, resulting in frequent conflicts over space and resources with consequences ranging from crop raiding to reciprocal loss of life. Current human-elephant conflict management approach of the government focuses on prevention through exclusion and on-site deterrents, and mitigation like monetary compensation for losses”, the document said.
