The death of a translocated tiger from the Ranthambore National Park (RNP) to the Sariska Tiger Sanctuary, which lost all its tigers in 2005, has brought to the fore the tug-of-war between the two sanctuaries and the need to fast-track relocation of villagers residing in the vicinity.
Senior forest officials maintain that a lobby, primarily made up of hoteliers and travel operators based in the RNP, were against the translocation process from the beginning. “Sariska is only around 190 km from New Delhi while RNP is close to 400 km. There is a lobby which believes that increasing the tiger population in Sariska will mean the decline of tourists to the RNP. Incidentally, ST-1, the translocated tiger which died, was the most visible tiger when tourists visited Sariska,” said a senior official, adding that such issues were never discussed earlier.
However, Union Minister Jairam Ramesh has vowed to go ahead with the translocation process, and announced a Rs 30-crore package to Sariska to aid the relocation of villagers in the tiger habitat area. Though the first tiger was translocated to Sariska in June 2008, the Rajasthan Forest Department began the process of rehabilitating villages in 2006. But since then only one complete hamlet has been shifted while four others are in various stages of completion.
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