National Tiger Conservation Authority

From: IAS (Indian Administrative Service Aspirant's blog)

The Centrally administered scheme Project Tiger was launched in April, 1973 with the objective “to ensure maintenance of a viable population of Tigers in India for scientific, economic, aesthetic, cultural and ecological values, and to preserve tor all times, areas of biological importance as a national heritage for the benefit, education and enjoyment of the people”.

• Amendment of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 for providing enabling provisions for constitution of the ‘National Tiger Conservation Authority’ and the ‘Tiger and Other Endangered Species Crime Control Bureau’.
• Enhancement of punishment in case of offence relating to a tiger reserve or its core area. Strengthening of anti-poaching activities, including special strategy for monsoon patrolling, by providing funding support to Tiger Reserve States, as proposed by them, for deployment of anti-poaching squads involving ex-army personnel/home guards, apart from workforce comprising of the local people, in addition to strengthening of communication/wireless facilities.
• Constitution of the National Tiger Conservation Authority with effect from 4 September 2006, for strengthening tiger conservation by, inter alia, ensuring normative standards in tiger reserve management, preparation of reserve specific tiger conservation plan, laying down annual audit report before Parliament, constituting State level Steering Committees under the Chairmanship of Chief Ministers and establishment of Tiger Conservation Foundation.
• Constitution of a multidisciplinary Tiger and Other Endangered Species Crime control Bureau (Wildlife Crime Control Bureau) with effect from 6 June, 2007 to effectively control illegal trade in wildlife.

The “in-principle” approval has been accorded by the National Tiger Conservation Authority for creation of new tiger reserves, and sites are:

• Biligiri Ranganatha Swami Temple Sanctuary (Karnataka)
• Pilibhit (Uttar Pradesh)
• Ratapani (Madhya Pradesh)
• Sunabeda (Odisha) and
• Mukundara Hills (including Darrah, Jawahar Sagar and Chambal wildlife Sanctuaries)(Rajasthan) 

Besides this states have been advised to send proposal for declaring following areas as Tiger Reserves:

• Bor (Maharashtra)
• Suhelwa (Uttar Pradesh)
• Nagzira-Navegaon (Maharashtra) and
• Satyamangalam (Tamil Nadu)

The revised project tiger guidelines have been issued to States for strengthening tiger conservation, which apart from on-going activities, inter alia, including funding support to states for enhanced village relocation/rehabilitation package for people living in core or critical tiger habitats (from One lakh/family to Ten lakh/family), rehabilitation/resettlement of communities involved in traditional hunting, mainstreaming livelihood and wildlife concern in forests outside tiger reserves and fostering corridor conservation through restorative strategy to arrest habitat fragmentation.

A scientific methodology of estimating tiger (including co-predator, pray animals and assessment of habitat status) has been evolved and mainstreamed. The findings of this estimation/assessment have been benchmark for future tiger conservation strategy. An area of 31,407.11 sq. km. has been notified by 16 Tiger States (out of 17) as core or critical tiger habitat under section 38V of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, as amended in 2006 (Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Mizoram, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Urrar Pradesh and West Bengal). The State of Bihar has taken a decision for notifying the or critical tiger habitat in its newly constituted tiger reserve (Sanjay National Park and Sanjay Dubri Wildlife Sanctuary).