For a city with polite, peaceful environs, Bhubaneswar is facing an undomesticated quandary of pachydermic proportions. A surplus of trees, paddy fields and boulevards certainly don't qualify for its growing fast into a concrete jungle that many a state capital has become.

But the jungle that does exist adjacent to Orissa's capital has flared up a conflict that is crossing its proportions. The forest that begins where the city limits end, also serves as a sanctuary for over 80 elephants.

However, the Chandaka elephant sanctuary faces imminent danger to its existence due to the increased human intervention, ranging from timber smuggling to poaching. Under siege, the pachyderms are hitting back. They have been sneaking into paddy fields, often trampling unsuspecting people who inadvertently cross their path.

If the destruction of their habitat has put the elephants under severe stress, the farmers too are distraught with the animals wreaking havoc almost every night. With only a national highway separating the sanctuary from the city, it is only a matter of time before the elephants decide to saunter down the Bhubaneswar thoroughfares.

"In fact the pachyderms have been exploring the city's outskirts, coming as close as the new up market colonies in Nayapalli and Baramunda, besides Jatani circle," locals said on Friday blocking the NH-5 near Janla Square led by the BJP.

Agitating villagers of Jatani blocked the road for an hour and later the tehsildar Bhaskar Srichandan convinced the villagers to withdrawn the road blockade. Villagers submitted a memorandum to the Khurda Collector urging his intervention.

They demanded the forest department should give Rs 8,000 as compensation for each acre of land for destruction of paddy crops. It may be noted at least 5,000 farmers are depending on agriculture in this region and after the damage by elephants, farmers have lost their voice.

Khurda BJP president Nikunja Kishor Patnaik said the Government should take permanent steps to stop this damage. "The elephants are under stress and therefore cannot be expected to behave rationally," said a senior wildlife official. The pillaging continues with townships and farmhouses mushrooming next to the sanctuary. Coupled with this is the deteriorating status of the sanctuary itself that provides the animals with little food.

This explains their frequent raids in the paddy fields, officials said. The farmers whose paddy fields are raided see them as aggressors but it is the humans who have usurped their habitat and made them ecological dislocates. But in the long run, it might be the elephant, which could end up paying more dearly.