High-profile Udhampur LS seat records around 70 pc polling
The Udhampur constituency sprawls from the plains of Kathua touching Punjab to the mountainous regions of Kishtwar and Doda.
Govt mulls rs 100 crore budget to tackle elephants
statesman news service
Bangalore, 15 July
The government is examining the possibility of launching a Rs 100 crore project to tackle the growing menace of wild elephants intruding into farms and areas closer to cities like the IT capital.
The proposal covers ten areas including rural and urban Bangalore, Tumkur, Ranmangara, Mandya,Dharwad, Mysore, Hassan, Chamarajanagar, Kodagu, Chikmagalur, and Shimoga.The announcement to this effect was made here today by Mr Ramanath Rai, in the assembly who added that the project would run for five years.
The project assumes importance following the intrusion of 16 wild elephants near the IT capital last month with a few even entrenching themselves in an international school on the outskirts of rural Bangalore. The incident created near panic even as the government hastily mobilised five trained elephants from Mysore and the Bannerghatta National park to drive away the pachyderms which had strayed close to the city from Tamil Nadu.
While the effort to push back the animals into the jungles was successful, it clearly rang a warning bell as the possibility of a repeat visit by the elephants could not be ruled out. It was at that time that Mr Rai even announced the likelihood of rebuilding the elephant corridor that the animals were so used to since several decades .These corridors were slowly being encroached upon by builders and others alike leaving little scope for the animals to move around.
This apart, since the last two years, incidents of wild elephants destroying crops in and around Hassan,Tumkur and Ramnagarar have gone up considerably. For that matter, barely a few months ago, two wild elephants created panic in Mysore city when they trampled one person to death.
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