MP ropes in 12k govt staff for tiger census

BHOPAL: ‘Ghoomna nahi, dhoondhna hai’ (You don’t have to roam but search)’. With this message from the forest department brass, around 12,000 staffers will cover Madhya Pradesh from Monday as a part of the All India Tiger Estimation, 2018.

The survey will help establish if Madhya Pradesh is able to regain the status of the ‘tiger state’, which it lost to Karnataka after the tiger census in 2010. That year’s estimate had revealed that the number of tigers in the state had dropped from 300 in 2006 to 257.

Officials, however, maintained that they are not preoccupied with the ‘tiger state’ tag as it was not an official status.

“We are least bothered about the tiger state status as it is not an official tag. We are only concerned over how effectively and honestly we execute our work. This is a litmus test for us as the result will show if the efforts taken by us in the past four years to protect tigers and the wildlife have yielded the desired result,” principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF), Jitendra Agrawal, said.

Giving details of the task at hand, Agarwal said: “MP has the highest number of forest beats in the country— about 9,000 against the country’s total 30,000 beats. Thus, we have to cover almost one-third of the entire country’s forest area, a huge task for the department. We are expecting a better result this time as there were already favourable indicators like the increase in tiger population in 2014”, he added.

Officials said t hat t hey changed their training methods this time around to ensure an improved result. “We decided to break the traditional mould of hierarchy in training. We also decided to train those staff members who were not on field duties. This will help us get an accurate figure in tiger estimation,” the PCCF added.