Ratapani to be proposed as tiger reserve in State Wildlife Board meeting
| Date :21-Jul-2019 |
Staff Reporter:
Flexing its muscles for notifying Ratapani as Tiger Reserve, proposal would be kept in the State Wildlife Board meet schedule for first week of August. The project is in cold bags for past nine years. At present there are more than 40 tigers active in Ratapani and it covers about 2,000 square km of area. In the proposal, a few areas of Sehore along with Bhopal and Raisen are included to be notified under the tiger reserve. Core and buffer area of proposed Ratapani Tiger Reserve will be of about 2000 sq kilometre. It would be State’s seventh tiger reserve and probably bigger than the Pench Tiger Reserve. Earlier, proposal was sent to notify it as wildlife division.
After clearing all hurdles of notifying the area as tiger reserve, Center would be granting 60 to 70 crore of amount (60%) and remaining 40 per cent amount will be granted by the State Government. According to forest officials, there are 32 villages around Ratapani, 40 adult tigers, 4,500 other wildlife, etc. Forest officials said after notifying Ratapani as tiger reserve new employment opportunity, tourism will be boost up and illegal mining would be stopped completely. “Process of notifying Ratapani as Tiger Reserve has been restarted and all efforts are being made to clear the obstacles. Government is also talking to the officials for positive response.
This time we are expecting to get final nod for the tiger reserve notification,” said Alok Kumar, Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forest. A step to develop the Ratapani Wildlife Sanctuary as tiger reserve was started during year 2007-8 and at the time, ‘in-principal approval’ of NTCA was given for creation of tiger reserve at Ratapani in year 2008 but the State Government did not send final proposal to the Centre. The proposal of tiger reserve remained pending for several reasons since year 2008. Officials of Forest Department said forestry of Ratapani is even better than Kanha, Bandhavgarh and Pench due to its density and sufficient water resources.
At present, there are more than 40 tigers in the sanctuary excluding the figure of tigers in Sehore and Bhopal forest circle. The area is spread over 917 square kilo meter with 25 km home range for each tiger. Wildlife enthusiast raised several concerns over the notification of tiger reserve. They said it is very important to create tiger reserve in Ratapani which is spread over 689 sq km in Raisen and Sehore districts. Activists said large number of tigers in the wildlife sanctuary is giving sleepless night to the locals and also raising chances of man-animal conflict.
