The emergence of Maharashtra among the top five in the country with highest tiger population is a result of the cooperation of those living in and around the habitat, and officials of the State forest department, Forest Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said on Monday.
The minister’s statement came after the All India Tiger Estimation Report 2018, released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Monday, put the number of tigers in Maharashtra at 312, up from 190 in 2014.
Mr. Mungantiwar said the tiger count in the State had increased by 64% due to stringent measures taken by his government for tiger conservation. “The tiger count in 2014 in our State was 190, and it has grown to 312 in 2019. As a result of everyone’s efforts, the state has jumped to the fourth spot, from the fifth previously, the credit for this goes to the locals and officials,” he said.
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Maharashtra has six dedicated reserves under the precincts of the National Tiger Conservation Authority, monitored under Project Tiger. These include Melghat, Tadoba, Pench, Sahyadri, Navegaon-Nagzira and Bor, all with a total area of 9,113 square kilometre. The tiger population has been consistently rising from 103 in 2006 to 169 in 2010. This went up to 190 in 2014, a 12% increase from 2010.
Senior officials said the Shyamaprasad Mukherjee Jan Van Vikas Scheme for development of villages around tiger reserves has been helpful in reducing the man-animal conflict in the reserves. The scheme has managed to reduce the dependence of villagers on the forest, and helped boost the supplementary businesses to farming activities, officials said.