CHENNAI: Coming as a huge relief, the State forest department has permitted the Irula Snake Catchers’ Industrial Cooperative Society to sell venom worth Rs 57 lakh, and issued licences for the Irulas to catch snakes. A Government Order (GO) to this effect was issued on Monday.
The livelihood of hundreds of Irulas, who are globally renowned snake catchers, had been crippled as the forest department delayed granting permission to catch snakes. Besides, orders for venom were gathering dust at the Office of the Chief Wildlife Warden.
TNIE recently highlighted the plight of Irulas in a report titled ‘TN govt’s apathy ‘killing’ India’s top snake venom producer?’, following which the government reportedly asked the society to let its members start catching snakes from March 26. Chief Wildlife Warden Syed Muzammil Abbas, who took charge only recently, has issued sale permits for 224 g of snake venom worth Rs 57 lakh. The Irula society is India’s leading supplier of snake venom, with a turnover of about Rs 4 crore annually. Of late, sales and profits have dwindled. This year, the society only managed sales to the tune of Rs 30 lakh.
An official from the society said their struggles are due to the forest department’s reluctance to let them catch their full quota of snakes. The Madras High Court in 1994 allowed capturing of 13,000 snakes annually to extract venom, but in the past few years the forest department hasn’t permitted the Irulas to catch more than 5,000 snakes. In 2021 too, they were only allowed to catch 5,000 snakes. This approach, the official said, was leading to a venom shortage. The society now only has venom of spectacled cobras and Russell’s vipers. Companies manufacturing anti-venom require venom of the common krait and saw-scaled viper too. If Irulas are not allowed to catch more snakes, companies might buy venom from unauthorised third parties to meet the need, the official said.
The Irula Society is the only authorised supplier of venom to produce anti-snake venom in India. Studies show that the composition of snake venom within a species can vary based on location. This has brought about concerns that venom from a specific geographical area may not effectively neutralise venom of the same species from another region. In such cases, larger doses of anti-snake venom serum may be required.
A recent study indicates snakebite envenoming in India has resulted in 1.2 million deaths from 2000 to 2019 i.e. an average of 58,000 deaths per year. About 70 per cent of these snakebites occurred in nine States — Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Rajasthan, and Gujarat.