Tension gripped several villages of Vedurukuppam mandal of Chittoor district, after a youth was injured in the attack by wild elephants in the early hours of Monday. The youth while attending the farm work at Tallabailu village came under the jumbo attack, and he was rushed to the SVRR Government Hospital at Tirupati.
At the same time, a house in the village had caught fire when some youth took to fireworks in a bid to prevent the elephants from entering the human habitations.
The Bachelor’s Group of three wild elephants, which entered Chittoor district in the last week of December last year from Tamil Nadu forests, had strayed into Nagari plains, 150 km away from their habitation, in the second week of January, resorting to extensive damage to crops. In February last, the jumbos attacked two farmers near Puttur, injuring them critically. The same month, they had blocked the Puttur-Chennai NH near Nagari on a couple of nights. Due to sparse jungle in the region, the wild elephants have been raiding the crops at nights, while taking shelter on hillocks and denuded forests at day time.
In spite of the repeated appeals of the farmers of Karveti Nagaram, Vedurukuppam, Nagari, Puttur and Narayanavanam mandals to protect their crops and habitations from the jumbo attacks, the forest department officials find it difficult to accomplish the task of tackling the animals in the plain areas.
In February last, the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), G.G. Narentheran said that ₹10 lakh was granted by the authorities to chalk out an action plan to drive the animals towards Seshachalam ranges near Tirupati. Poor staffing and non-availability of experts was said to be the reason for continued delay in executing the task.
