Meet on man-tiger conflicts ends with customary suggestions

“It started with tigers and ended with toilets,” said a forest official who attended chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s meeting with officials of Pilibhit district on Wednesday to discuss man-tiger conflicts in the region.

It was Adityanath’s first visit to the district after being appointed as the chief minister.

Women and child development minister and BJP MP from Pilibhit Maneka Gandhi along with local BJP leaders and MLAs of the district also attended the meeting.

“The chief minister heard about the problem keenly but didn’t go too much into the scientific aspects of it,” said the officer. Thus, the 45-minute meeting ended with customary suggestions, he added.

“We have decided to build more toilets in the villages where these incidents (tiger attacks) were reported and provide them with cooking gas cylinders,” Yogi said informing about the directions he gave to officials during the meeting aimed at reducing man-animal conflicts that have claimed 18 lives since October last year. The attacks started two years after the Pilibhit forest was declared a tiger reserve. Economic activities like harvesting wood and other forest products were stopped once it was declared a reserve. According to experts, the reason for the attacks were many – right from increase in tiger population in the forest, to change in land use, thin buffer zone and the unique horseshoe shape of the forest which is interspersed with human habitation.

Elucidating on the CM’s directions, UP forest minister Dara Singh Chauhan said, “Apart from toilets and gas cylinders, we will also help the forest department build a fence on 50-km stretch of the forest where most of these attacks have occurred.”

Asked if the CM promised any fund to implement these directions, the minister added, “As per our estimates, no additional fund will be required to implement the directions as they can easily be implemented by current programmes of the central government.” According to environmentalists, the suggestions proposed by the CM were “nonscientific and customary.”

“Firstly, none of the 18 people killed in tiger attacks were out to attend nature’s calls and neither were they out collecting firewood. All of them were farmers who were either guarding or doing farm work in their fields at the time of attack,” pointed Mohammed Zagir, a local environmentalist. For farmers living in villages near the forest the minister suggested, “Farmers must avoid visiting their farm too often and adhere to guidelines issued by the forest department.”

“Tigers attack us while we are working in our fields. We cannot stop working in our farms,” quipped Shamshad Malik, a relative of Sanshul Rehman who was killed in a tiger attack last week.

Malik, along with family members of five people killed by tigers since June, were invited at the Collectorate for the CM’s visit. The CM provided them relief cheques of Rs 5 lakh.