Wild elephants on the rampage again
SAMUDRA GUPTA KASHYAP

GUWAHATI, NOV 3: With the onset of winter, wild elephants in Assam deprived of their natural habitat are on the rampage once again , destroying crops and dwellings and leaving behind a trail of destruction.

The Sonitpur and Darrang districts in northern Assam have ben the worst sufferers. Wild elephants on the rampage have already killed three people, including a woman.

One person died in Golaghat district in Upper Assam, when a herd of wild elephants raided a village near Furkating after straying from the Nambor reserved forest, near the Kaziranga National Park last week.

In Sonitpur, a herd of around 150 animals, big and small, trooped out of the Charduar Reserved Forest and destroyed standing crops in several villages, apart from uprooting tea bushes in some tea gardens.

Around 30 people, including seven women, have been killed by wild elephants in Sonitpur district during the past two years, official reports say.

Incidentally, wild elephants figure third in the list of major killers in Assam after insurgency and malaria. Nearly 200 people have been killed by elephants in the state in the past six years.

There have been reports of elephants from the Kaziranga National Park crossing over the Brahmaputra and ravaging the Biswanath civil sub-division of Sonitpur district. Incidents of villagers being trampled by wild elephants have also been pouring in from Sibsagar and Jorhat districts in Upper Assam, as also from Nagaon in central Assam.

Assam, has registered shrinking of forest cover in the past few years and, the larger animals like elephants and buffaloes have borne the brunt of the destruction of natural habitat. There are approximately 6,000 wild elephants in Assam -- the figure varies from time to time due to entry of elephants from neighbouring states of Nagaland, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh.

Meanwhile, the forest department in collaboration with the Assam Branch Indian Tea Association (ABITA) has devised a scheme to install a ``solar system barrier'' in order to physically prevent wild elephants from entering the tea plantations. The barrier is being installed along a 50 km stretch between Dhekiajuli and Jiabhoroli, with the ABITA chipping in with Rs 9 lakh.

The state forest department and the district administration are putting in Rs 4 lakh each for the project worth Rs 13 lakh.

Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.