Forest safaris are very popular throughout the world. In India, forest safaris in Ranthambore, Kanha, Bandhavgarh, Corbett National Park, Kaziranga and in West Bengal Dooars are favourite forest safaris for tourists.
But there are no safaris in the Sunderbans area of Bengal, despite the fact that Royal Bengal tigers are a huge attraction, and the rare mangrove of the region attract lakhs of tourists every year. Tiger spotting in the Sunderbans however, is rare.
The Trinamool Congress has now proposed introducing a tiger safari in the region. It was raised by Trinamool Congress MP Sudip Bandopadhyay at the question-answer session of the Parliament on Friday.
Bandopadhyay’s proposal was welcomed by many. The Trinamool MP was referring to the lion safari that has made South Africa famous among tourists. He said that the Sunderbans was a huge attraction for tourists and a tiger safari can add to its attraction manifold.
Replying to the Trinamool MP’s suggestion, the Minister of State for Forest and Environment, Babul Supriyo said that such things could only become possible if the state worked in close co-ordination with the Centre. He urged the Trinamool leaders to prepare a proposal and place it to the ministry. “The Central government will definitely look into it,” the Union minister said.
Answering a question by BJP MP Locket Chatterjee, the Union minister of state also said that according to the 2010 Census, there were 70 tigers in the Sunderbans and the figure had increased to 76 as per the Census of 2014. Responding to an earlier question by Chatterjee, the Union minister in-charge of Forests and Environment, Prakash Javadekar had said that at this point of time, the government had no plan to make Sunderbans an eco-tourism hub. However, he had assured the House about the measures taken for protecting the mangrove forests.
In 1960, there was around 6,000 hectares of mangrove forests in the Sunderbans. However, in 1987, it came down to about 4,000 hectares. This was because there was no scheme to conserve the mangrove forests then. However, the Centre introduced a scheme later and at present there’s around 4,900 hectares of mangrove cover in the Sunderbans, the Parliament was informed.
[Cover image: safari in Bandhavgarh forest of Madhya Pradesh]
