New Delhi: India recorded 378 human deaths in tiger attacks between 2020 and 2024, with Maharashtra reporting the highest toll, according to government data presented in Parliament.
Responding to a question in Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Environment Kirti Vardhan Singh said that 110 people were killed in tiger attacks in 2022, the highest in the five-year period.
The number of fatalities stood at 51 in 2020, 59 in 2021, 85 in 2023, and 73 in 2024.
Maharashtra accounted for the most deaths, with 218 people losing their lives to tiger attacks over five years. The state recorded 82 deaths in 2022 alone.
Uttar Pradesh followed with 61 fatalities, including 25 in 2023. Madhya Pradesh, known for its tiger reserves, reported 32 deaths during the same period.
Assam, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttarakhand and West Bengal also reported casualties, while states such as Odisha, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Mizoram recorded no deaths.
According to a PTI analysis of the government data, over half of the tiger deaths in India between 2021 and 2025 so far have occurred outside protected reserves, with Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh accounting for the highest numbers.
According to the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), 667 tigers died during this period, of which 341, or 51 per cent, were outside tiger reserves.
The year-wise data shows 129 tiger deaths in 2021; 122 in 2022; 182 in 2023; 126 in 2024 and 108 so far in 2025.
Deaths outside reserves were 64 in 2021; 52 in 2022; 100 in 2023; 65 in 2024 and 60 in 2025 so far.
Maharashtra reported the highest number of deaths outside reserves at 111, followed by Madhya Pradesh with 90.
The NTCA data also shows that 1,519 tigers died between 2012 and 2024, of which 634, or 42 per cent, were outside reserves.
Currently, about 30 per cent of India's estimated 3,682 tigers live outside notified tiger reserves.
To address the growing human-tiger conflict in these areas, the government plans to soon launch the Tigers Outside Tiger Reserves project, which will cover 80 forest divisions across 17 states.
According to the latest tiger population estimation conducted in 2022, there were around 785 tigers in Madhya Pradesh, 444 in Maharashtra; 563 in Karnataka, 560 in Uttarakhand, 306 in Tamil Nadu, 229 in Assam, 213 in Kerala and 205 in Uttar Pradesh.