NGT Issues Show Cause Notice To Odisha For Failing To Notify Elephant Corridors

Bhubaneswar: The National Green Tribunal (NGT) issued a show cause notice to the Odisha government on Tuesday seeking to know what it has done so far regarding issuing a notification for 14 elephant corridors in the state.

The state chief secretary Suresh Chandra Mahapatra is to respond to the show cause notice by January 30, 2022.

On August 17, 2021, the NGT directed the state government to issue a notification under the Environment Protection Act to notify 14 identified locations as elephant corridors. Although over a year has passed since then, the state government is yet to issue a notification in this regard.

Meanwhile, an execution application was filed by an Odisha resident seeking to know the status regarding the issuing of the notification. The NGT took up the case on Tuesday and directed the state government to respond to its show cause notice.

Meanwhile, it is worth mentioning here that man-animal conflicts have been increasing in the state, especially when many elephants are venturing out of the forest habit to localities for food. In many cases, elephants coming out of their habits are invading villages, damaging crops and killing others. On the other hand, many elephants have died while crossing railway tracks in localities in search of food.

In a response to an RTI filed by Bhubaneswar-based activist Sandhyarani Mohanty, it was known that more than 400 elephants died in Odisha’s forests in the last five years due to diseases, accidents and electrocution.

The public information officer (PIO) of the State Wildlife Headquarters said that 416 elephants died between 2017-18 and 2021-22.

As per the last elephant census conducted in 2017, there are 1,976 elephants in Odisha.

A major point of concern revealed by the RTI responses is that more than half of the elephants which died due to electrocution were caused by “deliberate acts” of electrocution by poachers. Of the 61 elephants which were electrocuted, 35 were killed by poachers.