Cuttack: The Orissa High Court was informed by a wildlife expert that mapping of elephant corridors in the state has not been done “properly”.
Wildlife expert Raman Sukumar, who specialises in elephant movement, informed the High Court that elephant corridors “have not been identified scientifically” in Odisha.
Sukumar participated online while the High Court was adjudicating over a batch of writ petitions on the subject on Tuesday.
Odisha Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) Manoj Nair assured the court that this (elephant corridor) will be one of the issues to be taken up by the newly-formed Joint Task Force (JTF).
“JTF will examine the action plan that was put in place in the state of Karnataka while dealing with similar issues as well as the “East Central India Elephant Action Plan”, he said, adding that JTF will address the issues by involving the local population.
Nair said the electricity distribution companies have already been consulted to address the issues of elephant deaths on account of electrocution which has been happening in great frequency in the recent past.
On the issue of elephant poaching, he assured that concrete action would be taken to take the criminal cases to their logical end by having timelines for the completion of an investigation, filing of charge sheets and then pursuing the trial till completion.
The Division Bench headed by Chief Justice S Muralidhar, said it expect that a more detailed granular action plan on each of these aspects giving specific timelines will be placed before the court by the next date on January 18, 2023.
The Bench also comprising Justice M S Raman impressed upon the JTF that they should address two other issues such as preventive measures to be adopted to avoid deaths of elephants due to rail accidents and a comprehensive compensation scheme to address the issue of crop and vegetable loss as well as loss of human lives and injuries suffered as a result of the man-animal conflict.
PTI