Forest fencing permitted under centrally sponsored schemes: Javadekar in LS

New Delhi: The Centre on Friday said it has permitted fencing around forest areas to ensure safety of people living in adjacent villages from attacks by wild animals.

Responding to a question raised in the Lok Sabha, Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said the government is providing financial and technical assistance to state governments for activities like erection of physical barriers around forest areas to avoid man-animal conflict.

"The Central government supplements the efforts of state governments by providing financial and technical assistance to the state/UT governments under various centrally sponsored schemes for management of wildlife," said the minister in his written reply to a question asked by BSP MP Malook Nagar.

"Activities such as construction/erection of physical barriers, such as barbed wire fence, solar powered electric fence, bio-fencing etc. are permitted under the schemes for ensuring safety of people living near forest areas," he added.

The environment minister also said that as per state forest department of Uttar Pradesh, six persons have lost their lives in man-leopard conflict in Bijnaur District alone in the year 2019-2020.

Replying to another question on ensuring safety of wild animals and adequate food for them to prevent them from entering residential areas, the minister said the Centre has taken a number of steps regarding the same.

"A network of Protected Areas (PAs) namely, national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, conservation reserves and community reserves covering important wildlife habitat have been created all over the country by the respective states/UTs under the provisions of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 to conserve wild animals and their habitats," he said.

"The ministry has issued guidelines in context of human-wildlife conflict to the chief wildlife wardens of all the states/UT administrations," Javadekar said.

Replying to another question, the minister said that over 300 out of 700 industries inspected by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) have been found violating environmental norms and causing pollution in the last four years.

Javadekar said the CPCB carried out inspection of 700 industries for verification of compliance to environmental norms between April 2016 and March 2020. The states where maximum number of industries were found non compliant were Gujarat (41), Maharashtra (32), Odisha (25) and Uttar Pradesh (25).