The State Government has increased compensation amount from Rs 15 lakh to Rs 20 lakh to the relatives of a person if killed by wild animals like tiger, leopard and others.
Sudhir Mungantiwar, Forest Minister, announced this decision in the Assembly on Wednesday while the government issued a GR in this regard. It may be mentioned here that Mungantiwar had also raised this compensation amount from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 15 lakh during his previous tenure as Forest Minister.
The population of wildlife has increased due to effective implementation of wildlife management and conservation practices by Forest Department but at the same time the rate of man-animal conflict has also gone up. However, the department is reducing load on jungle by local communities through Dr Shyamaprasad Mukherjee Jan Van Yojna and awareness programmes. It is reported that the cases of human deaths in wildlife attacks has also increased from 47 in 2019-20 to 86 in 2021-22.
Now, the relatives of the deceased in attacks by tiger, leopard, wildboar, bison, sloth-bear, fox, wolf, elephant etc will get Rs 20 lakh instead of Rs 15 lakh. The department will give immediately Rs 10 lakh financial help to the relatives and deposit remaining Rs 10 lakh in bank FD so as to get them interest. If a person becomes disabled permanently in the attack then the relatives would get Rs 5 lakh and in case of serious injuries they would get Rs 1.25 lakh. The department will bear the cost of minor injuries for treatment upto Rs 20,000/- in private hospital.
The department would pay Rs 70,000/- or 75 per cent of market rate instead of previous Rs 60,000/- if cow, buffalo, ox is killed in wildlife attack, Rs 15,000/- instead of previous Rs 10,000/- if goat, sheep or other domestic animal is killed in the attack, Rs 15,000/- instead of Rs 12,000/- in case domestic animal becomes disabled permanently and Rs 5,000/- in case injuries to animal.
The decision taken by Mungantiwar attaches important in the background of increasing cases of human and animal deaths in wildlife attacks.
