A tigress called ‘Lady of the Lake’ walked into view barely 15 minutes after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh embarked on a safari inside Ranthambhore National Park today.

Dr Manmohan Singh who is — here on a visit to discuss the crisis plaguing Project Tiger and other wildlife reserves, his wife Gursharan Kaur and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje spent more than two hours inside the park this morning.

According to officials who accompanied the Prime Minister on the safari, the dignitaries sighted the tigress on the roadside in the Kamal Dhar area of the Nal valley in the 392 sq km park.

Her two cubs were, however, not with the tigress at the time.

They spent five minutes savouring the sight before the cavalcade moved on.

Eager to see a tiger in the wild, where large-scale poaching has been reported of late, Dr Manmohan Singh had set out on the safari in an open jeep at 5.45 am when sightings are easier.

“This is the first time I have sighted a tiger in my life,” the Prime Minister said later.

He said he had a “useful and informative visit” to Ranthambhore and gained first-hand knowledge of the challenges confronting national parks and sanctuaries.

While the entire tiger population of the Sariska reserve is feared to have been killed, 18 tigers have allegedly fallen prey to poachers in Ranthambhore in the recent past. Some tigers have also been reportedly killed in other national parks and sanctuaries of the country.

Dr Manmohan Singh is the first Prime Minister after the late Rajiv Gandhi to visit Ranthambhore. The former Prime Minister had spent a week in the park in December, 1985.

Expressing concern over the crisis plaguing Project Tiger and wildlife sanctuaries, the Prime Minister indicated that the government could chart out a fresh roadmap for reducing population pressure on protected areas.

“We must find more effective ways of reducing the pressure of human population on our forest systems,” he said while addressing a news conference.

He pointed out that biodiversity was under increasing pressure from increasing cattle and human populations and livelihood strategies had to be tailored to deal with the situation.

“The future of tigers is in our hands,” he said, adding that the government needed to focus attention on a complex web of issues responsible for the decline in their numbers. — UNI