animals-forest-land-deceased-in-jharkhand-since-2017-ag

The Comptroller and Auditor General on Monday presented its report at the Jharkhand Legislative Assembly, which indicates that there has been a decrease in the number of forest land and wild animals in the State. Several reasons have been blamed for this, including lack of employees in the department, improper expenditure of funds and not completing the work on time.

 

The report revealed that as compared to the year 2017, a decrease of 2.60 per cent has been found in the forest area in the year 2021, whereas there has been an increase of 13.51 pc in the vacant forest land.

 

Similarly, there has been an increase of 22.35 pc in the construction area in the State as per the report.

 

The reason for the decrease in forest area is the lack of work under the regional master plan in ecologically and sensitive areas like forest land, inadequate security arrangements and not working on conservation measures.

 

Also read: Jharkhand Assembly approves ₹4,296.62 cr supplementary budget

 

It was also found that there has been no improvement in the population of wild animals in protected forest areas. Because during this time, safe and untouched places were not created for wild animals.

 

Also, there is a decrease in hunting of carnivorous animals and lack of adequate pasture for herbivorous animals.

 

According to the data, the total number of wild animals in the year 2017-18 was 20,028, which decreased to 19,882 in the year 2020-21. During the audit, it was also found that in the year 2018-19, there was a decrease of 7660 in the number of wild animals. This decrease was 38 pc of the total wild animals.

 

But in the year 2020-21, the number of wild animals increased by 64 pc. That is, 7778 wild animals increased. This huge difference in the figures shows that the department is careless in counting the animals.

 

According to the report, between 2000 and 2005, there were 34 to 46 tigers in Palamau Tiger Reserve (PTR), which kept decreasing continuously. Only one tiger was found in the year 2022.

 

Similarly, the estimated prey base in PTR was 85,666 in the year 2012-13, which decreased to 4,411 in the year 2022-23. This is the reason for the shortage of tigers.