2,478 people and 1,300 elephants lost their lives in five years

New Delhi: – A petition has been filed in National Green Tribunal (NGT) on growing bloody conflict between elephants and humans across the country and damage to crops.
Jharkhand Association, Delhi, taking seriously the matter of increasing elephant attacks in the country and continuously damaging the crops, filed a petition in the NGT and made 13 states including the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests and Climate Change as necessary party in petition.
Petitioner sought intervention from the tribunal and made a party to West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhatishgarh, Karnataka and Kerala, according to data obtained through an RTI and additional sources, it has been claimed that over 2,478 people and over 1,300 elephants have lost their lives at different intervals across the country in the last five years.
The most people have lost their lives in Jharkhand and Odisha. Human-elephant conflict remains a significant problem for many states of India. And most, of the problem is very serious in Orissa, Jharkhand, Assam, and Bengal and according to statistics, one person dies in the human-elephant conflict in these states every five days.
The current techniques for early detection from threat of elephants are not effective, the petitioner claims according to media reports, more than 1,300 elephants have lost their lives, of which 136 died of poaching, 19 died of poisoning, 33 in train accidents, six in road accidents, while 204 died in other accidents and jumbo 206 deaths due to electrocution, more than 500 people have been killed by elephants in the last 7 years in Jharkhand.
The states of West Bengal and Kerala also witnessed a large number of deaths. While human versus elephant conflicts are on the rise in Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, and Meghalaya.
A statically data supplied by Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change, Government of India :-
S. N State 2017-18 2018-19 2019-20 2020-21 2021-22
1 Andhra Pradesh 6 7 4 6 NR
2 Arunachal Pradesh NR 0 0 0 NR
3 Assam 72 84 75 91 63
4 Chhatisgrah 74 61 77 42 NR
5 Jharkhand 84 87 74 84 133
6 Karnatka 22 12 29 23 17
7 Kerala 15 27 12 20 25
8 Maharashtra 0 1 1 NR NR
9 Meghalaya 7 3 4 6 3
10 Nagaland 0 1 0 0 0
11 Odisha 105 72 117 93 112
12 Tamil Nadu 49 47 58 57 37
13 Tripura 0 NR 6 1 2
14 Uttar Pardesh 1 0 6 1 0
15 Uttrakhand 5 3 NR NR NR
16 West Bengal 66 52 116 47 77
Total 506 457 585 461 469

Petitioner’s advocate Satya Prakash said that “after an incident of human-elephant conflict, affected farmers and local communities seek government agencies or non-governmental organizations to deal with the conservation of elephants to reduce future conflicts but State governments and the central government ignore this, which needs to be reviewed, relocating problematic individual elephants or herds, and compensating farmers financially for lost crops or lives, even as states protect elephants, but they have failed to utilize the funds allocated for the project and compensate the victim, thereby and the funds given by the Center under the “Project Elephant” scheme is not being utilized properly.