Assam plans app to fight elephant menace

Bogged down by growing man- elephant conflict, Assam forest department has embarked upon an ambition plan of developing a mobile application — Airwat to minimise the conflict.

“Airawat” will be a locationbased application that will help the responders to react in a prompt, coordinated and effective manner whenever a herd of wild elephant is sighted.

Informing that this application will help the forest guards and officers in planning and alerting the people in the area, the Nagaon district forest officer Suvashis Das said, “All ground- level field staffs, including people from the community, railway, circle office, etc., will be given log- in IDs. The location of all the parties will be visible in the app. In case anyone sights a herd, an alert can be sent through the app, which will also provide the location of the herd. The forest department is going to introduce the pilot project of this application, developed by a Lucknow- based organisation, for two forest divisions shortly.

Pointing out that forest department has frequently been accused of not responding to the calls of victims whenever herd of elephants is sighted and reportd, the forest officials said, “Through this application we can check the location of the ground staffs and can make them accountable if reaction time is delayed,’ forst department officials said.

The application will also help the forest department to know the direction of movement of elephant herds as their location will be continuously reported.

“The mission ( to drive away the elephants to a forest area) will not be terminated midway and all parties will remain active,” the district forest officer said.