NEW DELHI, Feb 25 – The Ministry of Environment and Forest has conceded that incidence of poaching has been on the rise in Kaziranga National Park. Instances of poaching of rhinos has been reported from KNP during the last two years, said Minister of State for Environment and Forest, S Reghupathy said in reply to a question by Anwar Hussain.
According to the information provided by Assam Government, 18 rhinos were poached in 2007, six in 2008 in the national park and its adjoining areas, he said.
The National Park is in the news for all the wrong reasons, besides rhinos, the reserves tiger population have also dwindled according to the latest census. The KNP has been recently placed on high alert following reports of the possibility of gangs of poachers attempting to sneak inside the national park to poach on the tigers.
During the last financial year, Assam Government submitted an annual plan for operation (APO) for an amount Rs 16.3 crore for KNP under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme Project Tiger. The Centre cleared Rs 4.57 crore for the Project. Of this a sum of Rs 1.50 crore has been released.
