Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The forest department is working on the proposal to secure tiger reserve status for Shivpuri’s Madhav National Park. The paperwork is being done in this regard for the last few months.
The proposal will be sent to the Central government and if it gives its nod, Madhya Pradesh will get its eight tiger reserve.
A senior officer of forest department at Mantralaya told Free Press that the department has been working on the proposal for months and required documents are being prepared to secure tiger reserve status for Madhav National Park.
Currently there are seven tiger reserves in the state and if Madhav National Park gets the status, the number of tiger reserves in the state will jump to eight. People familiar with the development said that even the new forest minister Ram Niwas Rawat is taking a keen interest in this regard.
A few days back the said proposal reached the minister and he has given certain directives in this regard. A forest officer said that on getting the status of tiger reserve, the national park gets a lot of funds for tiger conservation and carrying out other related activities connected with tiger projects.
This helps better monitoring of felines, he added. Notably, once there were many tigers in Madhav National Park but they disappeared decades ago due to many pressing reasons. In recent years, efforts are being made to revive the tiger population by translocating them from other reserves.
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Three felines were brought to Madhav National Park from other tiger reserves. A forest officer said that a year ago, Madhav National Park field director had sent a proposal to get additional area to develop the buffer zone.
‘National park area being increased’ Forest Minister Ramniwas Rawat told Free Press that the area of Madhav National Park is being increased and once this work is completed then the proposal for securing tiger reserve status will be sent to the Government of India.
