Wildlife and Rights activist from the city Ajay Dubey has claimed that the advocate of Madhya Pradesh Government Girish Kekre has emphasised on constitution of Special Tiger Protection Force (STPF) and to convert Ratapani sanctuary into a tiger reserve.
Dubey in a statement here on Thursday said, “The State Government has requested to the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) in 2008 to convert Ratapani sanctuary into a tiger reserve and the NTCA provided theoretical permission over it in May 2008 only and asked the State Government to submit final proposal but the Shivraj Singh Chouhan led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Government of the State under pressure from influential people and its political gain did not sent the final proposal overlooking conservation of tiger in the State.”
Dubey further said that the Government of India (GoI) promised in 2008 tp provide 100 facilities for the security of rare tiger species and like other States also asked the MP Government to constitute STPF but the Shivraj Government did not constitute it to benefit the mineral and forest mafia and the State is becoming graveyard of tigers.
He said, “we moved to the Madhya Pradesh High Court in both the cases viz Ratapani tiger reserve case and STPF case in the year 2014 over that court has sought reply from the State Government. In this matter only we have come to know about the letter of State Government’s counsel Kekre who has written to Principal Secretary – Forest and Principal Chief Conservator of Forest over both the issues to seriously provide security to the tigers and to constitute STPF.”
The letter was written on November 30 after his meeting with the Chief Conservator of Forest CK Patil, Director Kanha Tiger Reserve and District Forest Officer of Obedullagunj DK Paliwal, he added.
The wildlife activist said that now we further our demand that Ratapani Sanctuary should be converted into tiger reserve and STPF should also be constituted soon.