Parliament misled again on Human-Elephant Conflict

Raipur | Desk: Misleading information regarding Chhattisgarh’s human-elephant conflict has been repeatedly presented in Parliament.

The trend continued on Monday when incorrect data was shared again in the house.

Dr. Jayant Kumar Rai and Mrs. Sangeeta Kumari Singh Deo asked the Minister of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change a question regarding the human-elephant conflict.

In response to unstarred question number 1128, the Minister of State for Environment, Forest, and Climate Change, Kirtvardhan Singh, provided figures detailing human deaths caused by elephants, as presented in Annexure-1.

According to the data, 42 people lost their lives in elephant attacks in Chhattisgarh during the 2020-21 period.

Chhattisgarh’s official data underreports Human-Elephant Conflict deaths

In 2020-21, due to the elephant attacks in the state 65 people died, not 42 as reported in official data.

The missing data includes the deaths of 23 people.

According to data available with Central Gondwana Khabar , 16 people lost their lives in elephant attacks in the Jashpur division of Chhattisgarh in 2020-21.

14 lost their lives in Dharamjaigarh forest division.

In the year 2020-21, a total of 12 people died in elephant attacks in Surajpur forest division.

9 people died in elephant attacks in the Katghora division.

4 people died in Gariaband, 3 in Raigarh and Mahasamund each.

Whereas, 1 each in Elephant Reserve Surguja, Korba,Baloda Bazar, and in Balod district.