Project Tiger: Not 'burning bright'

New Delhi, Aug 27 (UNI) 'Project Tiger', the country's most ambitious wildlife conservation venture, has come under fire by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) for glaring mismanagement and violation of norms in Tiger Reserves.

The result has been an increase of just 20 tigers in 18 years in 15 Tiger Reserves created up to 1984! ''A rate of increase that highlights the ineffectiveness of the measures taken under the Project,'' said the CAG in its report for 2005-06 tabled in Parliament The Project has been dogged by adhocism, lack of monitoring and manpower, failure to enforce wildlife protection laws and to remove human encroachment in tiger reserves, contradictions between management plans and annual plans, lack of foolproof methods for counting tigers and lack of norms in the creation of Reserves etc According to the CAG, the very creation of tiger reserves has been inconsistent with norms.

It pointed out that the Special Task Force decided in 1972 to create tiger reserves with an average area of 1500 sq km with at least 300 sq km as the core area.

However, the 15 Reserves created under the Project Tiger have less than 720 sq km, less than half of the prescribed. In six out of these 15-- Palamua, Ranthambore, Pench(MP), Tadoba-Andhari, Bhadra and Pench(Maharashtra), even the core area was less than the prescribed 300 sq km. In 14 of them, there were human settlements.

Moreover, several reserves like Kanha, Pench, Palamua, Bandhav garh, Panna, Simlipal and Kalakad Mundanthurai are still waiting for formal notification which deprives them of the legal basis for protection, the Report said.

Adverse impact of the continuation of tourism activities and human settlements has also been pointed out in the Report. It said that in view of the fact that tiger population breeds well and grows rapidly in habitat that are without disturbances, it had been decided to relocate 64,951 families outside the Tiger reserves. The exercise was estimated to cost Rs 11,041 crore, but only a paltry sum of Rs 10.50 crore was provided in the Xth Plan.

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