BENGALURU: With the aim to control and regulate tourism and encroachment of forest land, permission from the state forest department also needs to be obtained before starting a new resort, hotel or homestay near Bandipur Tiger Reserve. Furthermore the new property should be in accordance with the tourism and forest department’s working plan.
To further regulate tourism, the forest department is also working towards closing down the existing guest houses inside the tiger reserve. There are standing guidelines from the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) to not allow stay inside tiger reserves. While officials in Bandipur have started work on this now, incase of Nagarhole, bookings for stay in the department guest houses have been restricted to only select spaces.
Pertaining to the restriction on properties outside forests, Bandipur Tiger Reserve (BTR) Director S Prabhakaran said: “We have only reinstated the existing order. The circular that has been issued re-emphasis that permissions to start operations need to have proper approvals, including that from the forest department. Also all those on encroached lands will have to evict.”
Renewal of operational licences will also need departmental approval. The department is also contemplating not issuing any new permissions to control their numbers.
To ascertain this a survey of the lands on the forest fringes is also being done. It may be recollected that the exercise of controlling the increasing hotels, resorts and homestays on forest fringes had started a decade back and the issue was also flagged in the session. But over the years, the exercise had fizzled out.
Now as the state government has cracked the whip on illegal home stays, hotels and resorts, in wake of the recent rape and murder of Israeli and Odisha tourist in Koppal, near Hampi; forest department officials are also becoming more vigilant.
Prabhakaran said, the staffers are also looking for spaces where the department guests can be shifted. “the NTCA guidelines have to be followed. We just cannot close down immediately. We have to see feasibility also. We are working in a phased manner. We have already shifted the safari outside the forest. Bookings to guest houses are being regulated inside the reserve,” Prabhakaran said.