"This is a tool developed to ensure that patrolling by a forest guard is more effective and the surveillance activity by the field director is based on ground-level information in tiger areas," environmental minister Jairam Ramesh said.

He said the system would bring in transparency and reliability as a "lot of information that is generated today is doctored an unreliable.. people sit in their offices and generate data, claiming that an area has been surveyed". The minister was referring to Sariska and Panna fiasco when officials falsely reported seeing tigers when in reality there were no big cats left in the two reserves in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

“The software will bring in transparency as far as forest guard or field manager is considered. We would have reliability in our reporting system," he said.

Being on top of the eco-system pyramid, conservation of tigers is high on the government’s agenda. The Centre has taken various steps for its protection in the recent years. In India their number has dwindled to around 1,411 due to poaching and shrinking habitat.

YV Jhala, an expert with Wildlife Institute of India (WII) said the user-friendly system would provide early warnings on poaching or habitat degradation and thus would provide scope for timely safeguards.

He said each guard will carry a GPS equipment that would give details on patrolling, Wildlife crimes and ecological monitors.

"The equipment will store, analyse retrieve and report at beat, range, division, state and national levels," Jhala said.

Another WII expert Parag Nigam said, the software would not only map patrol routes of forest guards but also distribution of animal species, including tiger presence, human disturbance and would enable field managers to assist intensity and spatial coverage of patrols in a GIS domain.