All eyes are now on a May 25 meeting which Minister incharge latehar Saryu Rai has called at Betla to make a threadbare discussion on eco development in and around Palamu tiger reserve.
Sources said officials of the various departments of latehar administration would also converge in this meeting to find out a cohesive measure to help save and promote PTR, eco development and eco tourism.
Chief conservator of forest cum field director PTR M P Singh told The Pioneer on Monday May 22 ‘ PTR belongs to all. Every department will have a say in it for its betterment. There should be a co ordinated effort for PTR and minister in charge’s May 25 meeting thus gains immense significance’.
A fleet of 199 villages in a radius of five kilometers in PTR has its own impact on PTR said Singh adding villagers bring cattle for grazing, collect dry wood for their hearths, exploit minor forest produce, indulge in poaching , claim to have decimals of forest land under forest right act and they carry out their works with a sense of alienation and vengeance.
Singh said ‘ We are to connect them. We always ask them not to go inside PTR, not to collect dry wood not to pluck out roots and herbs, not to bring cattle for grazing. All these give the villagers a feeling of no body which we want to remove with eco development’.
Sources said an eco development package worth 20 crores a year for 3 years has been put on the anvil said sources.
Asked as to what other departments will do for PTR Singh explained it in a simple way, “We want tourists to spend day and night in rural areas.
“Here drinking water & sanitation department, road department, electricity department have a major role to play. How can a tourist will spend his time in any rural house where right from accommodation to sanitation to connectivity to drinking water give a missIJ”
Similarly he said water irrigation department should raise ponds/tanks for cattle of villagers so that their coming on to PTR is restricted.
Asked that one has heard most eco tourism but no tangible things are any where to be found Singh said ‘ We plan to set up a bio diversity park between Dubiya Kharn and Betla’.
He said in the same vein ‘ There is a confluence of two rivers Ouranga and Koyal at Kechki . Here we plan to have a beach like resort .’
There is a hot water spot at Tatha. It can be made a tourist favourite reiterated field director.