By SANTOSH MOHANTY
The elephant-man conflict in Angul and Dhenkanal districts is showing no signs of respite even as the forest wings of respective districts have claimed that they have been doing their best to scale down the death toll to minimal.
The Union Government has recently admitted that the elephant-man tussle has escalated in the past four years in Angul and Dhenkanal districts of Odisha. In response to a question posed by Dhenkanal MP Rudra Narayan Pany in Parliament, Union Forest and Environment minister Kirti Vardhan Singh, said as many as 162 persons have died following jumbo attack in the four years.
The Union minister said that 31 elephants have died in the same period in these two districts of Odisha and added that the government is doing every thing possible to put an end to elephant-man conflict.
Community based organizations working in Angul and Dhenkanal districts said to minimize the conflict between the largest mammals and humanbeings, Pany should not limit his responsibilities as a people's representative only to put questions on elephant-man conflict in Parliament, rather it is obligatory for him to visit those regions in these districts to talk to people to discuss about strategies the government must take for driving out the jumbos to forest and save the people and their property.
They said the government, particularly the forest department of Odisha, must come forward with strategies to scale down such occurances at a time when the number of jumbos is increasing in these two districts. The elephant census has confirmed that the jumbo population in Angul and Dhenkanal districts are on the rise.
As the harvesting time in Odisha is drawing near, the agrarian community of the state, particularly in Angul and Dhenkanal districts, is apprehensive that pachyderms might go on rampage destroying crops. They are helpless, peasants in Mahidharpur, Banarpal, Bantala, Sabalbhanga, Sankhapur, Nuakheta, Pokatunga and Madhupur said, and added that the local forest staff burst crackers to drive the elephant away. But, this is not a permanent solution to the issue, the farmers said.
The farmers did not appreciate the so-called intellectuals who conduct Gaja Utsav and seminars on elephant-man conflict in five star hotels rather than discussing the issue with villagers to find out solutions who are the real victims. The forest officials in Angul and Dhenkanal forest divisions have experimented with honey bees to drive out the jumbos from human habitation, but this effort has not become frutful. They have been experimenting with solar fencing, setting up sirens in villages close to forest and high mast lights along elephant corridors to reduce elephant-man conflict, but to no avail, the villagers said.
The affected villagers in Bantala, Baluakata, Pateli, Sankhapur and Pokatunga said they have relied upon Angul MLA Pratap Chandra Pradhan to come to their rescue and find out a lasting solution to the issue, but he has ditched them. The harvesting time is on, the villagers said, but their MLA is busy attending meetings in air conditioned halls to speak hours on jumbo issue. He only talks, but fails to take measures to reduce the impact of elephant-man conflict, the villagers alleged.
