Bengal villages to get toilets to keep wild tuskers away

KOLKATA: West Bengal has evolved a rather unique solution to growing human-elephant conflicts (HECs) —constructing toilets so that villagers don’t have to defecate in the open and face the wrath of the jumbos.

This has now become a thrust area for the forest department officials to tackle HECs, particularly in the southern part of the state, which is a hub for such aggression.

Although Bengal harbours only two percent of India’s wild elephant population (around 30,000 jumbos in the country), they are believed to be responsible for over 20 per cent of the total human deaths. Migratory herds from Dalma in what is now Jharkhand have been entering into the area on a regular basis, resulting in a steady rise in man-elephant conflicts.

Bankura and West Midnapore account for the maximum number of HECs.

Open defecation is one of the concerns flagged by officials in West Midnapore district, where accidental deaths do occur when villagers, who come to relieve themselves in the wee hours, find themselves face to face with pachyderms in the forests bordering their hamlets.

Range officers are generating awareness and pushing for construction of toilets under the state’s Nirmal Bangla mission to transform all the hamlets to Open Defecation Free (ODF) villages by October 2, 2019.

“We are working in a concerted manner so that the Nirmal Bangla Scheme is implemented involving Divisional Forest Officers (DFO) so that all villages close to forests have toilets,” chief wildlife warden and principal chief conservator of forests Pradeep Vyas said.

The state government recently gave the green signal to create a new division in West Midnapore district in view of frequent elephant attacks.

In 2015-2016, 108 people were killed and 95 injured by wild elephants in the state. Fourteen elephants have been killed in retaliation. Though there has been a “sizable decrease” in human deaths over the year.