New Delhi | The NDA government has almost doubled the budget dedicated for tiger conservation and added 4,000 km of area for new tiger reserves in the country, the Environment Ministry has said on Monday.
Environment and Forests Minister Harsh Vardhan made the remarks while releasing a report on tiger conservation at the ‘3rd Stock Taking Conference on Tiger Conservation’ organised by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA).
The report – India Tiger Action Plan – released by the minister, who is also the chairman of the NTCA, also revealed that India has the maximum number of tigers amongst the 13 tiger range countries in the world, putting the big cat on the path to recovery.
“As a minister for MoEFCC for two years, I could see from close quarters and appreciate the level of commitment towards its conservation,” he said.
Highlighting the dedication of the NDA government towards tiger conservation, the minister said, “It gives me immense satisfaction that India is leading the world in tiger conservation.
“I distinctly remember that after this government started functioning it almost doubled the budget dedicated to tiger conservation and added 4,000 km of area to new tiger reserves,” he said.
The conference was held here to discuss the status of the Global Tiger Recovery Program (GTRP), initiated by 13 tiger range countries – India, Russia, China, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Thailand, Lao PDR, Nepal, Myanmar, Bhutan, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam – in 2010 in St Petersburg, Russia with an aim to double the number of tigers by 2022.
The minister praised the efforts of the stakeholders – NTCA, WWF(World Wildlife Fund), GTF (Global Tiger Forum) and others working on tiger conservation and said, “I may have released many books but releasing this one gives me immense pleasure as people are putting in so much hardwork for tigers, who don’t even know what is being done for them.”
He said conservation of tigers is a duty which has to be meticulously pursued and more innovative ways need to be devised so that targets adopted can be be bettered.
When the GTRP was created, the number of tigers was 1,411 in India, an NTCA official said, adding that according to the latest figures calculated for the year 2014, it had gone up to 2,226.
“As per the latest survey, number of tigers in 2014 were 2,226. The fourth cycle of the All India Tiger Estimation, 2018 is currently underway,” Nishant Verma, the Deputy Inspector General of the NTCA, said.
In the conference, which shall be held on Tuesday as well, the stakeholders also focused on the progress of the ‘Project Tiger’, initiated in 1973.
When the project was started, India had only nine tiger reserves and the number has now gone up to 50, Anup Nayak, the ADG (Project Tiger) and the Member Secretary of the NTCA, said.
He added that five new tiger reserves have been notified which shall increase inviolate area for focused tiger conservation by 2310.73 square kilometres.
The five state governments which have been asked to send proposals for declaring some areas as tiger reserves are – Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Tamil Nadu and Arunachal Pradesh, the report said.
Highlighting the conservation efforts towards tiger recovery between 2014-2018, Nayak said a special tiger protection force (STPF) consisting of 112 personnel has been deployed in eight tiger reserves.
The two-day conference is being hosted by the NTCA and MoEFCC in close collaboration with the Global Tiger Forum which is an international, intergovernmental organisation for conserving tigers in the world.
This is the second stock taking conference to be held in India after 2012, wherein progress against resolution adopted by tiger range countries in 2010 at St. Petersburg, Russia, is measured against Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as decided by the said countries.
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