Forest, ecology and environment minister Eshwar Khandre on Monday said that the state government intends to complete railway track fencing work in next three years to mitigate ongoing man-elephant conflicts in the state.
After launching the logo of the forest department here, Khandre observed that man-elephant conflict has been highest in the state with 29 persons losing their lives in the last one year.
"Since I took over as minister, I have witnessed three deaths. After seeing the gravity of the situation, I met Union forest minister Bhupender Yadav and appealed to him to get clearance for the old railway tracks that are needed to complete the fencing work in the state,” he said.
Further elaborating, the minister said that all types of preventive measures such as solar fencing or digging trenches have failed as these pachyderms being the most intelligent animals, they uproot trees and lay it on these trenches or solar fences to cross the barriers that entirely defeats the purpose. "So far, only fences installed using railway tracks have prevented conflicts to a large extent wherever the state has succeeded in installing it," he said. The minister, however, said that installing railway track fences is the costliest method as this requires Rs 1.5 crore fund per km.
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"The Union government was opposed to this project citing that the cost of solar fencing and trenches are cheaper than installing railway track fences. However, we were convinced that the initial investment on the railway fence may be little higher than other methods but the rail track fence needs very little or no maintenance, so in the long run it is a cost-effective project,” the minister said.
Khandre added that the Union minister allowed the state to use funds released by the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA).
He added that the state has completed 310 km of railway track fencing work of the proposed 641 km.
Admitting that confusion between two departments - Revenue and Forest - over ownership of land continues to this date, the minister said that the revenue and forest departments would conduct a joint survey to identify the land owned by each in the next six months.
"No detailed survey was taken up for decades to clearly demarcate forest and revenue land. Thousands of cases are pending before the two departments over the ownership of huge tracts of government land. The delay in the settlement of this issue has come in the way of removal of encroachment of forest land across the state," he said.