A herd of elephants damaged a house and trampled paddy fields at Chintamanuguda village in Kotturu Mandal in the early hours of Wednesday. The loss is estimated to be around Rs. 65,000, according to the villagers.
The residents feared that with the lack of adequate water and forage in forests owing to summer, the wild animals would increasingly venture into human habitations. Recently, pachyderms destroyed paddy and banana crops in the Mohan Colony and Mukundapuram village of Seethampet mandal.
The animals killed one villager, Murali, too in the Padali area of Hiramandalam region six months ago. As many as seven deaths owing to attack of wild animals were reported in the last few years, while the crop loss was put at more than Rs.1 crore in the last decade. The locals alleged that revenue officials were not coming forward to assess the crop damage, since they had to pay compensation.
Meanwhile, pachyderm menace have become the order of the day in many villages such as Palakonda, Kotturu, Hiramandalam and the residents blame it on the migrant elephants from Odisha. The Forest officials say plans are afoot to send the animals to zoological parks. “We have sought permission from the Centre for sending four elephants to zoological park. We will go ahead with it after getting the approval,” said an official.
Forest officials plan relocation of pachyderms to zoological park
