Dhenkanal: Incidents of elephants and other wild animals dying due to electrocution in Dhenkanal district is a huge cause of concern for the forest department. Officials of the forest department however, have blamed the power department for the loss of animal lives.
Referring to the electrocution of an elephant and two wild boars at Benipathar village under Hindol range three days ago, district divisional forest officer (DFO) Prakash Chand Gogineni said they had the information about the presence of a herd in the locality a day before the incident. They had also passed the information on to the junior engineer of the power department asking him to snap supply to the area where the pachyderms were moving around.
“The junior engineer did not pay heed to our request. Had he followed the instruction, the elephant and the wild boars could have been saved,” Gogineni informed.
Gogineni also informed that they had a meeting with the officials of Tata Power at the divisional forest office Thursday. They discussed in detail the method to be implemented to save wild animals from electrocution.
“From now onwards, if the engineers of the power department do not heed to our requests we will inform the central control room in Bhubaneswar. Then they will ask the engineers to follow the orders,” said Gogineni.
There will be a review meeting every week between the DFO and executive engineer of the power department regarding the power trip feeder so that steps can be taken accordingly, said Gogineni. “If there is coordination between all departments concerned, then there will be a substantial decrease in the electrocution of wild animals,” DFO added.
PNN