Post News Network
Kankadahada, Jan 19: As many as 1,500 open wells under the block in Dhenkanal district have turned into danger zones for elephants who stray near them for food at night and fall into the deep wells because of the prevailing darkness in the paddy fields.
The jumbos also sometimes fall into the wells in their effort to drink water.
Many pachyderms are injured in the process, some critically, as the guard walls of these well are in a dilapidated condition.
Forest officials then rush to the spot and try to rescue the elephants trapped in the wells, many of which do not have any cover or fence around them.
Sources said the block has three reserve forests — Anantapur, East Kamakhyanagar and West Kamakhyanagar — and as many as 115 reserve rural forests.
The dense forest cover in the block and the paddy fields in the villages attract the elephants from Jajpur district in the east, Talcher forest range in Angul district to the west and the Telkoi forest range in Keonjhar district in the north.
The elephants stray into the villages under the block in search of food, invade the paddy fields and end up destroying crop.
The jumbo menace has struck panic among villagers and forced them to live on their toes. Residents of the area said the wells were constructed in the 1980s in 21 panchayats of the block for providing water to the paddy fields.
Villagers demanded that the forest and agriculture officials join hands and identify all those open wells under the block. After identifying such wells they should take steps to erect fences or increase the height of the guard walls around these wells, they said.
These steps could substantially reduce the risk of elephants falling in the well. The locals cited an instance of a jumbo calf and its mother falling into a well in Pangatira village last month. Both the mother and calf were later rescued by forest officials and villagers.
