Close on the heels of a ban on elephants being forced to walk the streets of Mumbai, Maharashtra has planned to set up a santuary that will primarily be home to the numerous pachyderms who are rescued from roaming the roads of the metropolis.

The Maharashtra government has earmarked land near Kolhapur for the 'Elephant village' that will in addition to housing the gentle giants and providing them fodder also cater to mahouts and their families.

"Land has been earmarked for the rescue centre for elephants. "Elephants do not belong to the cities. The idea is to return the elephants to the natural surroundings of the forest where they have a lot of water and plenty to eat, " says Mike Pandey, wildlife photographer and conservationist.

The sanctuary that is aiming to shelter 30 elephants will be a public private partnership with the government of Maharashtra, the Earth Matters Foundation, Peta and Health and Suffering. Experts drawn from the government and social organisations concerned will survey the allocated land and work on the shelter will begin soon in October, say officials at Peta.
"The Maharashtra government has been very cooperative and acted in a responsible manner to our petition for land and alloted us a landlocked place in Kolhapur," says Sachin Bangera of the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta), which has been campaigning for compassion towards elephants.

Pandey says the primary focus will be on rehabilitating elephants that are caught roaming the city streets, and later they will look at other animals too.

"There is also a suggestion of creating an ape house, housing monkeys. The madaris have been banned and the monkeys are very difficult to rehabilitate. It is just a thought that we are trying to work on later," Pandey says.

After the death of Lakshmi, an elephant who was mowed down to death by a speeding truck in September last year in Mumbai, the state govenment had imposed a ban on elephants in its capital as well as in Nasik and Thane.

"Earlier we used to ask the mahouts of the animals we confiscated to take them out of the cities. But now with the centre coming up they can be sheltered there," Bangera says.

The centre will be designed keeping in mind the needs of the mahouts and their families too. " We are looking at a community based centre with participation from the people who live nearby. It would seek to create busines opportunites for those living inside like a very limited and very controlled tourism that would be a source of livelihood for them," says Pandey

"Elephants who work in temples or are employed by tourist organisations and in other commercial instituions when they are young and active are often bought by 'babajees' when they become old and unproductive. These fake people dress themselves up in safron robes and make the elephants beg in the steets of various metropolitan areas," says Pandey who has spent 22 years recording the elephants.
He points out that after shelling out 2 to 2.5 lakhs for the elephant, these 'babajees' within one or two years of making the elephants beg on the streets manage to colect 18 to 20 lakhs while simultaneously the weight of the elephant is reduced from 5 tonnes to two tonnes.

"The elephants who usually consume around 400 to 450 litres of water during the hot summer days are often given only a bottle or tow of mineral water during the day and forced to walk the streets on scorching hot tarmac and amidst bustling traffic in a cacophony of horns," says Pandey.

"Life on the streets for the elephants is miserable. They are prodded and hooked with sharp, metal ankuses and when they are not working are chained by their legs. They commonly suffer from potentially deadly foot ailments, skin problems, eye infections and cataracts. Allowing elephants in crowded urban areas also poses a danger to the public as the frightened animals have rampaged and killed mahouts and scattered crowds.," says a Peta official.

India has 60 per cent of the world's population of elephants and a country where elephants are revered, they are also expected to be treated with compassion, points out Pandey. He adds that even in Assam there have been cases of elephants begging on the streets.

"In Chattisgarh, Maharashtra we are actively involved in bringing relief to elephants," he says.

Peta, has also roped in celebrites like John Abraham , Raveena Tandon, Dilip Kumar, Saira Banu and others to petition the chief ministers of states to follow Mumbai's lead and ban the entry of elephants into urban areas.

The petition requests the ministers to become 'ele friends.' "We hope that other government swill emulate the progressive step of the government of Maharashtra and the petition should serve as a wake -up call, says Peta Chief functionary Anuradha Sawheney.