While the State and District administration focus their attention on ensuring proper execution of works to arrange for the successful organisation of Kumbh Mela in Haridwar, the environmental wealth of the State in this region is facing threat of greater damage due to official apathy.
It is pertinent to mention that the routine movements of herds of wild elephant populations from the protected forests areas of Rajaji National Park and Corbet Tiger Reserve have often lead to confrontation with human settlements. The human encroachments upon forest land and unauthorised constructions have replaced the areas figured on the migration route map memorised by generations of wild elephants, which regularly use these land corridors to move across areas with human settlements in order to reach their forest domain.
The Dhalwala locality near Rishikesh has seen repeated incidents of single or more number of wild elephants being confounded in forest areas now encroached upon by unauthorised constructions for both residential and commercial use. At least two elephants were killed during the past couple of years for allegedly having strayed dangerously close to human habitation in Dhalwala area. The huge influx of people during Kumbh Mela is also liable to content numerous elements aiming to capitalise on the religious fair to further their criminal earning from poaching of wildlife animals and smuggling of forest products. With the authorities focusing on the public, criminal elements hope to plunder the environmental wealth of Uttarakhand to their fullest extent.
