NILGIRIS: Officials of Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR) on Tuesday commenced maintenance of Elephant-Proof Trench (EPT) along the forest boundary to prevent elephants from venturing into villages coming under the Srimadurai panchayat nearby.
Based on the request from Gudalur RDO and Police, Deputy Director of C Vidhya engaged a vehicle to remove soil and bushes that have accumulated in the EPT. The cleaning drive was taken up after residents of Srimadurai announced a protest against the forest department for failing to control the intrusion of elephants into village.
Srimadurai panchayat president KR Sunil told TNIE that elephants enter villages like Kuniyal, Mulapalli , Eachanvayal, Vadavazal and Odakolli as these are located bordering MTR due to lack of water source and fodder availability inside the forest. “Though EPT was laid for ten kilometre, forest department did not carry out maintenance works in the last two years. As a result, animals are able to cross the trench easily and enter into the villages.”
Ward 3 councillor A Narayanan said though there has been no untoward incident due to elephant movement, the animals are frequently entering into farm lands and damaging banana, arecanut and coconut trees on daily basis. Moreover the animals approach the kitchen, attracted by the smell of rice and damage houses, he added.
Councillor of ward 9 Sathyan said that a farmer was injured when he tried to escape from elephant attack recently. He added that people cannot even take a torch light and go for a walk during morning and night since elephants charge towards them when they flash the light at them.
