Officials and field staff from the forest department and Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO) will conduct joint inspections in rural Coimbatore in conflict-prone pockets to prevent illegal direct electrification of fence, which is claiming lives of elephants and humans.
At an inter-department coordination meeting held here on Monday, TANGEDCO officials agreed to train forest department field staff to test the voltage of power passed through the fence and safely disconnect them. It was also decided that raids would be conducted at nights as farmers disconnected the direct electricity connectivity to the fence during the day – when the raids are usually conducted.
Briefing on the issue, K. Kalidasan of Osai said that the population of tuskers was very less compared to females. “On an average there is only one male elephant for every 25 female elephants in the country. Sadly most elephants that died of electrocution are males,” he lamented and added that two elephants – one each in Mettupalayam and Gudalur – were electrocuted in two months.
Landscape coordinator of World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) D. Boominathan said the combined patrolling operation would begin at localities where elephants had been electrocuted. This would be followed by the inspection of elephant corridors and localities where areas under cultivation were frequented by jumbos. “In many places, farmers erected electric fence for wild boars but it claimed lives of elephants,” he observed.
Officials also observed that in some instances of direct illegal electrification of fence the landlords were unaware of it as the labourers engaged by them were behind it so that the wild elephants did not disturb them at nights. The possibility of having insulated cables for high voltage electricity wires passing through the forest was also discussed. Since it would be expensive, it was decided that both the departments would identify vulnerable areas, and an estimate for erecting cables in those areas would be sent to top officials in both the departments.
