Grassland management in tiger reserve Palamu is in limbo. There is no fund for eradicating non palatable and invasive grasses in the tiger reserve and in national park Betla.
PTR has about 200 hectares of grass land. In rainy season these grass lands become obstructive as non palatable weeds and invasive grasses occupy the place most leaving herbivores in great lurch.
With the onset of rains eradication is done so as no seeds of such a grass gets spread over in the time between fruiting and flowering.
DFO Core of PTR A K Mishra conceded that grass land management is languishing for want of fund. He said before seeds come over, eradication of grasses is done fast. However he said with a few hands, eradication of weeds in 25 to 30 hectares in the national park Betla is on. But for the rest 175 hectares of grass land there can be no weeding without fund.
Weeding is done manually. It can not be through any machine.
PTR officials are planting bargad and peepul saplings more and more in numbers as these two species are the favourite food of the herbivores.