BENGALURU: More than 4000 members of the State Forest Department Daily Wages and Outsourced Employees Association have announced that they will launch an indefinite strike at Bandipur Tiger Reserve on April 1.
The association’s vice president, SS Harish, said: “From April 1, temporary staffers will go on strike. This includes watchers, guards, drivers and other frontline staff. There are more than 6,000 temporary staffers in the state, of which 4,000 have agreed to join the strike.”
The staffers also refused to participate in a video conference scheduled for Tuesday. “A link was shared through a message, asking us to participate and voice our opinions. This is not possible for us. We should be called for a conversation to iron out issues,” said Harish.
The strike is expected to affect patrolling and daily watcher duties. Sources in the department said that while there are permanent recruits, a large portion of the work is done by temporary staffers. Besides, this is the forest fire season, and a large workforce is required for patrolling and mitigation work. The incidents of man-animal conflict are also on the rise. A large workforce is needed for many other works also.
The members of the association have demanded that their wages be credited directly to their accounts from the forest department, instead of doing it through agents who delay passing on the amount, sometimes even by a month. They also demanded that those who have completed 10 years of service in the department must be given equal ex gratia and as permanent staffers.
Harish said that till 2017, the wages were being credited to the accounts of the temporary staffers. “When we protested on November 17, 2025, then the principal chief conservators of forests, the forest secretary and Kodagu MLA AS Ponnnana met us and agreed on direct payment of wages. But till date, nothing has happened. During the tigress poisoning case in MM Hills, forest minister Eshwar Khandre had assured us timely salaries and other facilities equivalent to temporary staffers, but in vain,” he said, adding that a memorandum on this was submitted to the department’s head office a fortnight ago.
Reacting to this, a senior forest department official who did not want to be named said, “There is much more to this. All temporary staffers are paid through agencies across departments. The government will take the final decision.”
UNION MIN TO CHAIR MEET ON MAN-ANIMAL CONFLICT
Hassan: Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav will chair a high-level meeting to discuss strategies to combat man-animal conflict, an issue that has been plaguing Karnataka, said former minister HK Kumaraswamy on Monday. He said MPs Tejasvi Surya, Kota Srinivasa Poojari, Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar, Dr CN Manjunath and Mallesh Babu will join the meeting.
Addressing a press conference in Hassan, Kumaraswamy said the Union minister has promised a concrete programme to address the problem, which also has the state government in confidence. Yadav discussed the wild elephant menace in detail with the delegation of coffee growers led by former prime minister HD Devegowda, union minister for heavy industries and steel HD Kumaraswamy, which presented to him a memorandum with detailed information about the man-animal conflicts in Hassan, Chikmagaluru and Madikeri districts.