BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha Government on Friday approved a proposal which will allow communities to pay and demand solar fencing in elephant-impacted villages. Solar-fencing as a measure to prevent depredation leading to conflict was marginally effective because of lack of maintenance as well as theft. To bring in community ownership, Wildlife Wing had submitted a proposal where solar-fencing of villages could be taken up in PPP model under which agencies would be empanelled for maintenance work for a period of five years. Sources in the Forest and Environment Department said, the plan would allow villages to pay 10 per cent of the cost.
“Elephant-impacted villages can seek solar-fencing by moving a proposal in their respective gram sabhas. Once the gram sabha clears it, the proposal will be presented before the Divisional Forest Officer for evaluation,” said sources. The village will pay 10 per cent of the project cost while the Forest Department will bear the rest. For fiveyear maintenance agreement, empanelled agencies will be roped in. The PPP mode, the Department believes, would bring in public involvement into the solar fencing projects and help minimize conflict.
In fact, villages apart, orchard owners will also be able to take part in the solar-fencing scheme but with 50:50 cost-sharing ratio, the sources said. Orchards are places where elephants hide during the days and straying villagers encounter the jumbos leading to fatal accidents. Odisha, which has been in news for growing elephant deaths, has also drawn up a new monitoring plan for protection of the gentle giants.
As per the plan, forest guards and field level squads will send information on elephant movement to forest ranger officer with geo-tagged images to help them know exact position of the elephants and disseminate information to other ranges and forest divisions accordingly. This would help forest divisions to plan field requirement, tracking, monitoring and drive away the pachyderms to the forests. During their patrolling duty, the field staff will take photographs of elephants or fresh signs using an existing mobile app and send it to the range officer concerned. Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (PCCF-Wildlife) HS Upadhyay said photos without location details will not be entertained at any cost.
“Non usage of specified mobile apps or non-submission of geo-tagged photos during monitoring duty will be considered a serious lapse and will be dealt accordingly,” he said.
In case of any difficulty in using such app, squads will have to inform GPS location to the range officers either over phone or wireless network immediately. The monitoring will be supervised through 24X7 control rooms functioning at Forest division, RCCF and PCCF levels for proper coordination.