It's a jungle raaj in tiger reserves

New Delhi: The Centre's ambitious Project Tiger programme has come in for sharp criticism from the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) which found that

many tiger reserves do not even adhere to the prescribed norms for a core area or the protected zone of a sanctuary.

While the norms for tiger reserves prescribe an average area of 1,500 sq km with at least 300 sq km as the core area, the CAG report for 2005 found that 15 of the 28 tiger reserves spanned over less than 720 sq km.

Six of these 15 tiger reserves had a core area of less than the prescribed 300 sq km, it said noting that such discrepancies existed despite the knowledge that tiger population breeds well and grows rapidly in protected areas.

The CAG found that human settlements existed in the core areas in half of the tiger reserves, including Ranthambore, Sariska, Panna and Pench.

The result has been an increase of just 20 tigers in 18 years in 15 tiger reserves created upto 1984.

The Project Tiger Directorate (PTD) admitted that human settlements disturb tigers but said the areas were brought under the project considering the threat to the tiger population there.

The CAG also pulled up the PTD and the concerned state governments for the delay in notifying the tiger reserves as National Parks, which provides for a legal basis for ensuring protection.

"In many tiger reserves the final declaration procedures of National Part (core) and sanctuary (buffer) were pending even as of March 2006 even though the amended Wildlife (Protection) Act, 2003 set the time limit for completion of acquisition proceedings," it said.

The final notification declaring the area as a National Park was not issued in Indravati, Kanha, Pench, Palamau, Bandhavgarh, Panna, Simlipal and Kakkad Mundanthurai till March this year despite they being declared as tiger reserves in 1973-75.

"This depicts lack of commitment and seriousness of the concerned state governments while denying legal backing to the boundaries of the reserves," the CAG report said.

The state governments have also drawn the ire of the CAG for the lack of any special anti-poaching drive or any stringent action in cases of tiger killings.

"No stringent action except to register cases in the offence was taken," it said.

A test check in the audit revealed that out of the 46 cases of poaching registered during 2000-05 in the Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan, 13 were tiger cases.

The CAG found that poaching cases were registered belatedly after seven to 48 months.

The CAG report said the implementation of Project Tiger was severely hampered by understaffing.

The personnel employed were under-trained and under-equipped in many cases, besides having a weak communication and intelligence network.

Relocation of the people living within the tiger reserves as well as removal and prevention of encroachment was essential to ease the biotic pressure on the tiger population, the report said adding efforts in this direction did not succeed primarily because of lack of resources.

Against the requirement of around Rs 11,000 crore to relocate 64,951 families living within the tiger reserves, the allocation in the Tenth Five Year Plan was a meager Rs 10.50 crore.

The CAG has suggested that all tiger reserves should have a well-formulated management plan for appropriate allocation of resources.

It suggested that the Government make a firm commitment to relocate the local families and villages from the core and buffer areas of the tiger reserves and draw a comprehensive resettlement plan.