Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan on Thursday met Environment Minister Eshwar Khandre and sought the help of the Karnataka Forest Department to tackle man-elephant conflict in his State.
Mr. Kalyan, who also holds the Environment portfolio, led a delegation of forest officials and requested Mr. Khandre to provide eight kumki elephants to manage, drive, and capture wild elephants. Mr. Khandre said that he would consider the request, however, he clarified that the kumki elephants, which take part in Jumbo Savari during the Dasara celebrations in Mysuru, would not be given.
“We cannot hand over elephants that part in the Dasara celebrations. We have around 103 semi-trained kumki elephants in our elephant camps. Even if we heed to their request and immediately transfer the jumbos, it will be of no use. So we have suggested that they train the mahouts and kavadis. We also assured them our team would help train their personnel in darting and capturing the elephants,” Mr. Khandre said.
He added that Karnataka has sent 67 kumki elephants to various States. In 2022-23, four elephants were sent to Uttar Pradesh, 14 to Madhya Pradesh, and three to Maharashtra.
Mr. Khandre said that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) would be signed between the two States during the International Conference on Human-Elephant Conflict Management-2024, scheduled to be held in Bengaluru on August 12.
Key points of MoU
Some of the key points of the MoU include formal institutional arrangement between Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka Forest Departments for addressing man-animal conflict, deploying expert teams for elephant capturing, mahout training, training programme in running elephant camps, knowledge transfer, standard operating procedure for darting and capture of elephants, provide expertise in nutrition and food, workshop etc.
During the meeting, Karnataka forest officials disclosed to the Andhra Pradesh counterparts that they had seized ₹140 crore worth of red sanders in the State, which was smuggled from Andhra Pradesh.
Red sanders seizures
Appreciating this Mr. Kalyan said: “In the meeting, we were apprised that ₹140 crore worth of red sanders were seized by the Karnataka Forest Department officials. This was news to me. We are short of funds in Andhra Pradesh, you could have kept quiet, and we would have never got to know. I truly appreciate the honesty of the officials.”
Mr. Khandre also highlighted that land to construct a Kalyana Mandapam at Srisailam in Andhra Pradesh for devotees from Karnataka had not been renewed by the A.P. government. He also sought the government’s help to provide more facilities for devotees in Tirupati. Mr. Kalyan said he would look into this.
