Has Telangana lost its love for tigers? No money in budget

The latest Telangana budget for 2017-2018 does not feature ‘Project Tiger’ in it and it is indeed surprising. ‘Project Tiger,’ sponsored by the Central government for tiger conservation, funds the conservation program in Kawal and Amrabad. But surprisingly it has disappeared from the papers.  

The new guidelines suggest that the state government has to show at least 4o percent allocations for tiger conservation in its budget. After that, the Central government would match the remaining 60 percent. Previously, the entire funding used to come from the Centre.

Apparently, an amount of ₹ 7.89 crores has been allocated for National Afforestation Program (NAP). The officials have stated that there are no separate funds for the tiger conservation project as it is usually diverted from the NAP funds.

“The Telangana Government does not seem seriously inclined on the protection of wildlife. They lost the opportunity to constitute Special Tiger Protection Forces which were being funded 100% by the centre earlier. Now, it is out of the question,” an environmentalist was quoted as saying by The Hindu.

“They set up one base camp with CAMPA funds and called it anti-poaching base camp. There is absolutely no anti-poaching activity done by Forest personnel. State allocation is not shown in the budget, because, if it is, then there would be no scope for diversion,” the environmentalist expert added.