Rise in wild elephant menace in Tarikere

Villagers gherao revenue department office

Enraged over the absentee officials in Deputy Commissioner’s office, the villagers who had arrived to hand over a memorandum, demanding the authorities to check wild elephant menace, staged a protest by closing the doors of revenue department, in Chikmagalur on Wednesday.

The wild elephant menace is on rise in Thanige bailu, Thimmana Bailu, Hunase Bailu, Jayapura, Nandi Battalu for the last few months. The farmers have been losing crops worth lakh of rupees, with the wild elephants damaging the crops.

To urge the Deputy Commissioner to distribute compensation for the loss of crops and to check wild elephant menace, the villagers had arrived at the DC’s office.

However, none of the officials visited the protesting farmers to receive the memorandum.
At the same time, Deputy Commissioner, Additional DC, Assistant Commissioner, Shirasthedar was not in their chamber when the villagers visited them.  Enraged over the incident, the villagers expressed dissatisfaction over the revenue department and entered into an altercation with the Accountant of the Revenue department.

The villagers and farmer said “the villagers visit the district headquarters every Wednesday, to air their grievances. However, if the officials remain absent, then whom should we air our grievances. We are not able to meet even the taluk-level officials.”
The farmers closed the door of the revenue department and staged a protest.

The villagers said “four persons have lost life following elephant attack. Inspite of submitting memorandum to the forest department, the elephant menace has not been solved so far. If the officials continue to neglect us, then we will lock Deputy Commissioner’s office in the future,” they warned.

The protest was withdrawn after the DC office assistants promised to bring the issue to the notice of the Deputy Commissioner. Later, the villagers visited the Wildlife Division office. When Conservator of Forest was not in the office, to listen to the woes of the villagers, they staged a protest in front of the office and submitted a memorandum to Assistant Conservator of Forest Ramprasad.

The villagers said that they will stage indefinite protest, in front of the forest department, if measures were not taken to check wild elephant menace within a week.
Zilla Panchayat member Hemavathi Krishnappa, Nandibattalu GP President Abdul Gafar, Vice-President Krishne Gowda and others were present.