CM asks Jhargram admin to engage youth to curb tusker menace

Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has instructed the Jhargram district administration to engage youth and train them up to save the villages from the menace of elephants.

Elephants enter Lalgarh and its neighbourhood and destroy crops every year. They also kill people and destroy mud huts.

At the administrative review meeting held in Jhargram on October 10, Banerjee urged the district administration to engage youth under the 100 days work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme and train them up.

"Engage local youth who are efficient and know the behaviour of elephants. Elephants follow a path and these youth who are born in the area have sound knowledge about the movement of elephants. The farmers toil hard to produce paddy and they are financially shattered if their produce is destroyed by elephants," she said.

She urged the Forest department officials to prepare a scheme to save the district from the elephant menace. The state government is also recruiting forest guards shortly.

The Forest department has also prepared a comprehensive plan to stop the menace.

Since time immemorial, elephants enter Lalgarh and its neighbouring areas from the nearby forests. In the past three decades, several plans had been taken up but none of them were found to be foolproof.