Post News Network
Dhenkanal, March 10: Expecting a blazing summer ahead, the district forest department here in its bid to make drinking water provision for elephants has decided to dig 36 ponds at a cost of Rs 90 lakh in its forest regions.
The money to be spent on digging ponds will be made available by the state wildlife authority from the funds of Compensatory Afforestation Management Programme Authority (CAMPA) in 2013-14 fiscal. These ponds will be dug in eight forest ranges in the district with Rs 2.5 lakh to be spent on each pond.
Among these ponds, four will be dug in Dhenkanal Sadar range, six in Hindol range, six in Sarangi range, four in Kapilas range, four in Kamakhyanagar eastern range, four in Kamakhyanagar western range, two in Mahabirod range and six in Bhuban range.
Each pond will be three metres in depth, 40-ft in length and 30-ft in width, sources from the forest department said. While work on 28 ponds has already begun, digging of eight more ponds will begin soon.
The decision to dig ponds was taken after the pachyderms were regularly found straying into human habitats during summer in search of food and water, resulting in man-animal conflicts. There will be more ponds in those forests where the pachyderms are more in number.
The Kandhra reserve forest in Hindol forest range is a major habitat of pachyderms for which six ponds will be dug in the region.
When contacted, divisional forest officer Pradipta Kumar Sahoo said the rise in elephant population coupled with water scarcity has posed serious problems due to which the decision was taken to dig ponds.