Despite active efforts by the State Government to curb man-animal conflict in Maharashtra, the number of human deaths due to wild animal attack is showing an increasing trend in last four years.

An RTI reply to activist Abhay Kolarkar has revealed that total 298 human deaths occurred between 2019 and November 9, 2022 in the State. This year, so far, 86 persons were killed in wild animal attack which was 84 last year. In 2020, the number was 89 and in 2019 it was 39.

Maharashtra Government paid more than Rs 350 crore as compensation to affected families for human life loss and property loss in last five years. This year Rs 61.06 crore was paid by the government as compensation. In 2021 the compensation amount was Rs 80 crore and the same amount was spent in 2020 also by the government. In 2019, government paid Rs 70 crore and in 2018 the compensation was Rs 65.58 crore.

Maharashtra Government constituted committees to study the cause behind increasing man-animal conflict in the State. In the RTI reply, Chandrapur circle is the most affected region in Maharashtra where 148 people lost their lives due to wild animal attack in last four years. The tiger-human conflict monitoring committee and a leopard-human conflict monitoring committee of state government recommended many things in their report to curb the conflict mainly in Chandrapur district. Acting on the recommendations, the forest department recently initiated shifting of troubling tigers of Yavatmal district to Navegaon Nagzira Tiger Reserve. However, the leopard-human conflict monitoring committee denied to shift troubling leopards to other places.