13. November 2010 01:17
India will now get 8 more tiger reserves, in addition to the existing 39. A new tiger reserve will be set up in Sathyamangalam in Tamil Nadu, BR Hills in Karnataka will have another, and while Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh will have two each, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa will get one each.
Union Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh said, "I hope the tiger census will be released in two weeks. I am keeping my fingers crossed. I hope we will have good news.”
Ramesh also said the National Tiger Conservation Authority will be decentralized with three new offices in Nagpur, Bangalore and Guwahati. Ramesh’s ministry has moved the Finance Ministry for an additional Rs 800 crore in 2010-11 and another Rs 1,000 crore in 2011-12 for relocation of families from core tiger areas.
Some 50,000 families need to be relocated of which 3,000 have been moved already. “We should do this in five years,” added Ramesh. Each family is being given Rs 10 lakh.
The allowance for field staff in tiger reserves has also been doubled. There are 10,300 staff members at present.
To improve the state of sustainable tourism, Ramesh said that the ministry will start a mechanism in which the revenue from tourism flows back into the reserves.
Tiger conservation in India is “most extensive and most intensive” than any other nations in the world, the minister added.
Read at source: Tehelka
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