New Delhi: Encouraged by the success of a pilot project in the Panna tiger reserve last year, the union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) on Wednesday announced plans to use drones for electronic surveillance of tigers in reserves across the country. The ministry is planning to use drones at around 15-20 sites across five different so-called ‘tiger landscapes’ making up 47 tiger reserves, over the next couple of years. According to the 2014 estimates released in January 2015, India today is home to 70% of the world’s wild tigers. The report said there are around 2,226 tigers in the 47 tiger reserves in India, compared to 1,706 in 2010 and 1,411 in 2006. The increase in tiger numbers, coupled with insufficient staff, is one of the main reasons for the environment ministry turning to drones to ensure the safety and security of tigers. The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has already been using high power CCTV cameras in the Corbett national park to keep an eye on tigers and check poaching. “Since the poaching of tigers had become an issue of concern in view of the tigers’ deaths, the introduction of e-surveillance by drone would be a strategic intervention for the preservation of tiger population. At the same time, people’s surveillance on the line would also lead to better management,” environment minister Prakash Javadekar said at a meeting of chief wildlife wardens of tiger range states and field directors of tiger reserves in the national capital on Wednesday. “The plan is to have them (drones) across five different tiger landscapes (comprising all 47 tiger reserves) across India. But before that proper need and feasibility analysis will be conducted to decide the actual site for their usage so that technology can be customized as per site requirements. We will also be working on a detailed project document,” said K. Ramesh, a scientist at the Wildlife Institute of India, an autonomous institute under the MoEF that offers training programmes, academic courses and advisory on wildlife conservation and management. The ministry will send different kinds of equipment in the drones, including thermal cameras and mapping cameras. Each drone is expected to cost Rs.3-5 lakh. Javadekar on Wednesday also released SOPs (Standard Operating Procedure) for dealing with incidents of rehabilitation of tigers straying into human habitations. India started Project Tiger in 1972 after the population of tigers had dwindled to less than 300 across nine tiger reserves in the 1970s.