The forest department in Bankura has hired a dozen cars with forester escorts, to safely ferry Madhyamik examinees from elephant-prone villages in Jungle Mahal to exam centres from Thursday.

“We have listed Madhyamik examinees from villages in the forests and have hired vehicles for each area. Vehicles with examinees will be escorted by Airavat, a special vehicle with equipment to tranquillise elephants if needed, to ensure that youngsters safely reach their exam centres. We will also drop them home the same way once the paper is over,” said Umar Imam, divisional forest officer of Bankura North division.

Airavat — a vehicle fitted with equipment to drive away or tranquillise elephants — is used by the forest department to manage sudden human-animal conflict situations.

Foresters had conducted a survey in villages adjacent to the forest, of students, exam centres and distances. After a rough estimate was made, they hired a dozen cars to ferry around 80 students from at least six remote villages.

This year, 6.98 lakh students will appear for Madhyamik, starting on Thursday and will end on March 4. Around 30,000 students in Bankura will write the board examination across 116 centres.

Sources in the forest department said this was the first time they were hiring cars and ensuring “utmost protection” for the examinees because the number of elephants in Bankura forest has gone up. Presently, Bankura is reportedly home to 74 wild elephants, which is the highest in the past five years.

“Earlier, there were hardly 30-35 elephants in the forests. This year, the number of elephants has doubled. There are around 14 rowdy animals that have killed at least three people in the district within a month. So, we did not want to take any risk. We want to ensure all students appear for their first board exam peacefully,” said a forest officer.