Man-animal conflict: Forest dept to come up with centralised control room……..Neha
In a bid to expedite the response time during a man-animal conflict scenario in the state, the Forest department plans to set up a centralised control system. A control room will be set up where anyone can report instances of man-animal conflict. The state Forest department and Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) are jointly setting up the control room.
The centralised control room will be set up under the Central Conflict Mitigation Command Centre (CCMCC), which will particularly look into man-animal conflicts. It will be functional in the next few months, said Anil Kumar Singh, co-ordinator of WTI. It will be beneficial as we will be able to take precautionary measures at the earliest in such situations, which will help us in preventing any casualty. It will decrease the response time, enabling us to start the rescue operation as soon as possible. We will also train the Forest department officials in this regard, added Singh. The CCMCC will have a toll-free number which will be similar to a helpline number. It will be distributed among the public across the state. A dedicated staff will be in place, which will maintain a database of each complaint which will be attended to.
In case of any emergency, the field staff deputed there will inform the Rapid Response Team in the nearest area. This will particularly benefit people from areas where man-animal conflict cases are not common as they do not have any Rapid Response team.
There have been several instances where the Forest department or police officials are unable to save the animal as the locals tend to get agitated. In such cases, the police team from the nearby areas will immediately be sent to tackle the situation, said Singh.
The team can also inform the control room if they require anything like requirement of additional infrastructure like cages or vehicles, added Singh.