The civil society and conservation organizations of Numaligarh in eastern Assam have demanded the authorities not to allot government land for any permanent construction or Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) aided project in the Puranbangala-Doigrung region in the township as it is a traditional elephant corridor.
Notably, the whole of Numaligarh area falls under one of the major elephant areas of the country and the adjoining areas including the Purabangala rice fields leading up to the Doigrung River that serves as elephant corridor.
The establishment of NRL has created man-elephant conflict and the problem has been increasing with average death toll of 10 to 15 yearly.
Elephant depredation has also devastated rice cultivation in the area. The elephants rampage through villages in search of food as their habitats are being overtaken by people.
Wildlife activists say human encroachment in the forests of north-east India have forced elephants out of their natural habitats, triggering conflicts with locals.
Conservationists have urged the government to prevent encroachments and free corridors that are used by elephants to move across forests in search of food.
In recent years, there have been many incidents where wild elephants have entered villages, destroyed crops and even killed people.
After the Numaligarh Refinery erected a wall in an important migrating route of the elephants inside the Deopahar PRF, human-elephant conflict reached alarming proportion in the whole area.
Now that the National Green Tribunal has given verdict to dismantle the wall and the civil administration has been in the process to implement the order of the NGT, conservationists have asked the civil authorities and the forest department for a survey of all important migrating routes of the pachyderms before allotting government land for any permanent construction.