At a time when the man- elephant conflict has reached a gargantuan proportion with loss of life from both sides, and crop damage at the extreme, the Forest department in Sambalpur thinks of solar fencing in a few villages of the district to prevent the menace.

“If found successful, the system will be extended to more villages which are also facing the elephant problem,” informed the DFO of Sambalpur Sanjit Kumar.

In the first phase, the solar fencing will be made in two km in Rengali and five km in Jujomura forest range of the district. The cost will be around Rs 2 lakh per km, the DFO said.

Due to the elephants menace, the people of lipinda, Keshapali and Jujomura gram panchayats of Jujomura block are suffering a lot. While around 50 farmers suffer damage of standing crop, houses of 32 families have been demolished by them during the current year. One man of Jujomura has also lost life. And this is a practice almost every year in the blocks of the district covered with dense forest.

In Rengali block area, deforestation has taken place in vast forest lands due to the rapid and indiscriminate industrialization. The result being elephants find a scarcity of their traditional food and enter villages having standing crops. More interestingly, elephants damage more crops than they eat.

“And as part of the precautionary measures, solar fencing is the suitable solution from every front. By this, the elephants will get eclectic shock but will not die,” the DFO maintained.

“Since this system has been found successful in some parts of neighbouring Sundargarh district, we are hopeful of a good result out of it in our district also,” he added.