| Kalinga Times Correspondent
Bhubaneswar, Dec 31: Odisha government has finally woken up to the problem posed by the growing man-elephant conflict in different regions of the state.
The government on Tuesday announced that it would execute an integrated action plan to contain the menace by spending a sum of Rs 53 crore over the next five years.
Frequent incident of human-elephant conflict has resulted in the death of many human lives and killing of innumerable elephants in the state during the past years.
The measures proposed include formation of a squad to prevent poaching of elephants, and creation of another squad to chase away the wild elephants from human habitations.
The action plan would also give emphasis to payment of compensation to those getting affected by elephant attacks, training of the staff dealing with elephant menace and GIS monitoring system.
The decisions were taken at a high level meeting chaired by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
It was also decided that trained elephants and Mahuts from Assam to chase the elephants away from human settlements.
The meeting also decided to put up iron barricade around Chandaka elephant sanctuary to prevent the elephants from entering the Capital city and the villages on its periphery.
As per government records, Chandaka has a total of 67 elephants, but the truth is that more than 20 of the pachyderms are wandering outside the sanctuary for the past several months. According to the government, the state has 1862 elephants at present out of the national total of 26000.
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