BENGALURU: With increasing cases of man-animal conflict, securing the forest boundaries has become important, and with it, the need for funds is progressively increasing. But over the years, the funds allocated by the state and central governments, under Project Tiger (PT), Project Elephant (PE) and for forest fire mitigation is dipping.
There doesn’t seem to be any additional support coming in for conservation and protection works, to the five tiger reserves in Karnataka - Bandipur, Nagarhole, Anshi-Dandeli (Kali), Bhadra and BRT.
A national park or a wildlife sanctuary is given the title of a tiger reserve, after due process as per Section 38-V of the Wildlife Protection Act 1972, after which, the tiger reserves are maintained according to the instructions of the National Tiger Conservation Authority.
“The present forest areas are well protected as national parks, and wildlife sanctuaries, as per the Wildlife Protection Act 1972, and other forest acts. After declaring an area as a Tiger Reserve, the reserve comes under centrally sponsored scheme, hence, is dependent on funds from the Centre and the State, where 50 per cent of the funds come from the Centre, and matching 50 per cent comes from the State.
The funding under Project Tiger scheme has been dipping year on year, since 2015. In the year 2015, approximately Rs 350 crore was earmarked for the project, for the 38 tiger reserves in the country, which has reduced to about Rs 150 crore in 2023- 24, for 54 tiger reserves,” a forest department official told TNIE.
The project had released only Rs 49.16 crore towards Karnataka in 2019-20 against the sanctioned amount of Rs 58.29 crore. But, in 2022-23, only 50 per cent of the sanctioned amount of Rs 60.51 crore, was released by the Centre and State. The pending amount were not considered for the next year.
In 2023-24, only Rs 50.85 crore was released against the sanctioned amount of Rs 67.84 crore by the Centre and State.
“Due to the non-release of funds, matching grants from the state government has also came down, resulting in severe fund crunch. Since the works were approved by NTCA, they were carried out, but the amount was not released, leading to severe problems in payments. Moreover, the release of funds are delayed and the first installment itself is released only 6-7 months into the financial year, creating a challenge for the reserves to pay wages to the frontline staff,” the official said.
Also, the NTCA has not yet released the Rs 2.34 crore due, towards the Bandipur Tiger Reserve, for the 50th year commemoration programme, which was attended by the Prime Minister. “The payments to the agency and Hotel have been cleared by the Bandipur Tiger Reserve, awaiting funds from the NTCA,” the official added.
The official pointed that while funds for Project Tiger are still better, condition is extremely poor for Project Elephant, which has now been merged with the Project Tiger. For instance, in 2022-23, Rs 30.01 crore was released under Project Tiger and only Rs 1.71 crore under Project Elephant. In 2021-22, central government released Rs 50.56 crore under for tigers and Rs 4.35 crore for elephants.
The Centre released Rs 2.279 crore for forest fire management in 2019-20, which dipped to Rs 88.08 lakhs in 2023-24.