The Sunderbans Tiger Reserve may face drying up of funds as a fallout of the recent merger of the Project Tiger and Project Elephant, experts have expressed fear.
The merger of the two helped in the creation of a new division with the name Project Tiger and Elephant Division under the ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEF&CC), triggering concerns among the wildlife conservation circles. The merger was announced in April 2023 but the official order came up on June 23.
Sources in the ministry told The Plurals that the amalgamation itself was driven by funds crunch.
According to documents sourced from National Tiger Conservation Authority, the Sunderbans Tiger Reserve has received only about Rs 8.4 crore in the past two financial years, barely half of Rs 15.6 crore originally allotted.
“There is little information so far on the division of funds. Would the funds be allocated on the basis of the number of animals? What would happen in areas like the Sunderbans where there are no elephants? Would the fund be further reduced? It all remains to be seen,” said Biswajit Roy Chowdhury, a wildlife expert and a member of state wildlife advisory board.
Another setback in the offing
The experts, including both retired and serving foresters, most of whom spoke to this reporter on condition of anonymity, said the move might prove detrimental to the green department after the slip-up in the much-vaunted recent cheetah introduction project in India.
Few experts, however, opined that the decision might be an administrative one and not likely to impact the conservation programmes much but admitted that “lack of details is adding to the confusion”.
Incidentally, the green ministry decided to wind up the independent existence of Project Tiger less than four months after the Prime Minister referred to the programme as “a remarkable success story in the conservation and growth of tigers”, while commemorating the completion of 50 years of the programme.
Even on Friday, the Prime Minister claimed during the G 20 environment and climate ministers meeting in Chennai that “70 per cent of the world’s tigers are found in India today as a result of Project Tiger”.
Officials in the green department observed that “the merger has been done to rationalise the funding” and claimed that it would help the conservation of both the animals as they often share the same landscapes in the country. “There will be less overlap in areas having both the programmes. The administrative set-up for the two schemes will continue to exist separately; only funding is to be merged,” said an officer.
Records available with this reporter shows that the actual funds allocation on tiger conservation has been dwindling since 2018-19, before a surge in 2022-23; though actual fund release was much less even in that financial year.
According to an analysis, the amalgamated budget of Project Tiger and Project Elephant schemes in 2023-24 stands at Rs 331 crores; a reduction from 2022- 23 combined budgetary amount of Rs 335 crore, including Rs 300 crore for Project Tiger and Rs 35 crores for elephant. However, the actual fund released in 2022-23, combining the budget for Project Tiger and Project Elephant, was only Rs 220 crore about two-thirds of the allotted amount.
Incidentally, the Project Tiger allocation was Rs 350 crore in 2018-19; Rs 282.57 crore in 2019-20; Rs 195 crore in 2020-21 and Rs 220 crore in 2021-22.
“The process of requisition and release has been made extremely complicated in recent years; and hence, most tiger reserves are suffering. Around Rs 300 crore has been allocated in the last financial year for 53 tiger reserves; and even that amount has not been released,” said a senior forest department official from Madhya Pradesh.
“Already, there has been hardly any fund release in the current financial year for many tiger reserves, and it is felt that shortage of funds might affect key developmental activities, including anti-poaching work,” said Rajarshi Banerjee, a wildlife expert from West Bengal.
Incidentally, the latest “Management Effectiveness Evaluation of Tiger Reserves in India” report, published in last April, points out that the funding from the central and state governments as well as from other funding sources are among the poorest five performance areas considering all the tiger reserves in the country among 33 parameters considered.
Two exclusive programmes should not be merged
“The step will undermine the conservation of both signature animals,” said a frontline wildlife expert in the country, explaining that two separate projects were formulated because their challenges were different and there was significant divergence. “It is not about money but mindset. If you feel conservation is a priority then the government should invest in the process,” said the scientist.
Pradeep Vyas, a retired forester from West Bengal, however, expressed hope that the decision would not affect the conservation process. “I think it is an administrative decision. National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) is already looking after leopards and rhinos for a long time in some areas, hence adding elephants should not be a problem if handled well,” opined Vyas, reminding that settling the human-elephant conflicts was a priority.
Another retired forester as well as a tiger expert with WWF also expressed hope that the merger would not impact the conservation process; but observed that more clarity was required on the process.
Experts reminded that how a similar proposal made by Planning Commission in 2011, to merge three central schemes — Project Tiger, Project Elephant, and Integrated Development under Wildlife Habitat (IDWH) into one, was dropped by the then union environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan when the experts in the standing committee of the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) opposed the move. “We demand that the environment minister and Prime Minister Modi should take steps to reverse the step”, said several experts.