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Panel to address human-animal conflict in Telangana

A tiger on the prowl is giving sleepless nights to the residents of the largely foresty district—mostly tribals living in isolated hamlets
Last Updated 03 March 2021, 17:55 IST

In the wake of the killing of two humans by a tiger, the Telangana government has formed a high-level committee to address the increasing incidents of human-animal conflict in the state.

In November last year, a tiger wandering into Komaram Bheem Asifabad district, which abuts Maharashtra, killed two tribals—a young man and a teenage girl—in two separate incidents in a span of three weeks.

“The killer is the same tiger which is coming in and moving out of Telangana. A2 was born, grew up in the Chandrapur super thermal power station area of Maharashtra (close to our border),” R Shobha, principal chief conservator of forests, Telangana told DH.

The tiger on the prowl is giving sleepless nights to the residents of the largely foresty district—mostly tribals living in isolated hamlets and dependent on forests and minor cultivation for their livelihood.

The non-resident tiger has also killed about 15 cattle till now.

However, A2 is not the only wild animal keeping the Telangana forest officials on their toes. Several tiger sightings are reported from other areas too like Khammam in recent months. And leopard sightings have become more frequent including in suburb localities of Hyderabad.

Following such incidents, Shobha said she wrote to the government to constitute a state-level committee to evolve a mechanism for mitigation of such human-animal confrontation.

According to a government order issued on Tuesday, the panel, chaired by the Telangana minister for forests & environment, with senior officials, conservation experts and one representative from the National Tiger Conservation Authority's regional office in Bangaluru as members, would submit its report in three months.

The committee would propose measures to avoid recurrence of incidents of tigers killing human beings, and propose a revision to the existing compensation package while setting guidelines for settling the claims for human death, injury, cattle kills, crop damage, etc.

As of now, the state government compensates a family of a person killed due to an attack of a tiger or other wild animals with Rs five lakh.

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(Published 03 March 2021, 17:55 IST)

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