22 yrs on, ATR’s boundaries yet to be demarcated

Bijnor: When Uttarakhand was carved out of Uttar Pradesh in 2000, Amangarh fell into the latter's kitty. Though Amangarh Tiger Reserve (ATR) was notified in 2012, its boundaries are yet to be demarcated. According to officials, Amangarh has a 45-km stretch of forest along at least 16 villages, but over a 30-km stretch has not been demarcated and is sans solar fencing due to which wild animals enter fields and destroy crops. It also leads to confrontations as farmers grow crops on a big chunk of forest land, due to which the forest department fails to erect solar fencing.DFO Anil Patel has already sent a letter to the revenue department to conduct a survey that began some years ago but couldn't be completed because of a staff crunch. Once the demarcation task is done, boundaries will be protected as per the norms and man-animal conflict will be resolved, said the DFO. Harveer Dabas