The National Board for Wildlife, chaired by the Prime Minister, will meet tomorrow to discuss the disappearance of the big cats from its reserves.

The meeting of the body, which is under the Union environment and forests ministry, is significant as it will be held amid allegations of neglect of government reserves and sanctuaries and large-scale poaching in them.

This is the reason why wildlife activists have been demanding an independent crime bureau, said Belinda Wright, leading tiger conservationist and founder of the Wildlife Protection Society of India.

At present, the CBI’s wildlife crime cell investigates violations of the wildlife act, 1972. But its role is limited.

“Though the Wildlife Protection Society proposed it (a bureau) way back in 1998, there was no action on it,” Wright said.

The proposed bureau will be on the lines of the Narcotics Control Bureau and will track trends and offenders in its role as the lead enforcement agency for wildlife crimes.

Its countrywide branches will include personnel from the CBI, the police, customs and other enforcement bodies and will have the environment ministry as its nodal agency.

The bureau had first taken shape in a concept paper that had followed a meeting in 1998 between then home minister L.K. Advani, the then environment minister, and conservationists.