The Madhya Pradesh government has banned the use of cellular phones and private wireless sets inside the national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in the state.
“Cell phones were becoming a problem for both the wild animals as well as the park management,” a forest department official said.
In most of the national parks in the state — including Kanha and Bandhavgarh — tiger is the prime attraction of the tourists. The forest officials say that once a tiger is spotted by a group anywhere inside the park, cell phones are used by the tourist operators and the tourists to summon everyone to the site, resulting in utter chaos.
“Instead of becoming a pleasant experience for a couple of lucky tourists, sighting of tigers has become a mad scramble to somehow get to see the animal. And, the cell phones are responsible for this,” a source in the forest department said.
Mobile sets with cameras were already banned in all the national parks within the state. Now, the tourists will be required to surrender all their cell phones at the main entry of the park.