Rajasthan panel wants tigers relocated

Its report — ‘‘Securing the future’’ — submitted yesterday, has called for rehabilitation of villages in Sariska’s Core I area to keep ‘‘the sanctum-sanctorum of the park free from all kinds of disturbances’’.

Once the villages are removed and an adequate security system put in place, the report proposes relocation of three tigers from Kanha and one from Ranthambhore.

Recommending an immediate ‘‘full-fledged high level CB-CID police probe into the connivance and involvement of forest staff of all ranks and the local people and other vested interest groups with the poaching gangs’’, the report goes on to slam the state forest department and the Project Tiger for failing to detect the crisis.

On Sariska, the report observed: ‘‘The Project Tiger with all its specified protocols and the modern reporting systems proved to be woefully lacking, and therefore these inputs from Project Tiger came to naught. In fact, the ‘early warning systems’ created by Project Tiger failed to deliver’’.

Seeking immediate action and fixing of responsibility for the decline in the tiger population in Ranthambhore from 47 in 2004 to 26 in 2005, the report points out that ‘‘as late as (in) March 2005, an inspection report by Project Tiger stated that there were no tigers missing in Ranthambhore and all monitoring and early warning system were in place’’. It goes on to note that ‘‘the systems put in place for monitoring Ranthambhore tigers were either non-existent or failed to deliver’’.

For Keoladeo National Park, the report recommends ensuring suitable water reservation in the Panchana dam.

The SEC has discouraged any efforts to make piped water the mainstay — as it would cause ‘‘irreparable loss’’ to the wetland eco-system.