Bhubaneswar, Feb 6 (PTI) More than 1,000 people died in wild elephant attacks in the past decade in Odisha, Forest and Environment Minister Pradip Kumar Amat told the state assembly on Tuesday.

In a written reply to a question from Congress MLA Tara Prasad Bahinipati, the minister said 1,054 people were killed in elephant attacks in the state between 2014-15 and 2023-24.

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As per the reply, the major elephant habitation zones in Dhenkanal, Sundargarh, Angul, Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar districts accounted for the bulk of the casualties.

With 227 human casualties due to jumbo attacks in the last 10 years, Dhenkanal district topped the chart. It was followed by Sundargarh district (181), Angul (144) and Mayurbhanj (102).

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Out of 30 districts of Odisha, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Koraput, and Malkangiri districts have reported zero human causality due to elephant attacks in the past decade, he said.

The state has 1,976 elephants, according to the 2017 census conducted for the last time.

The state government has recently hiked the ex-gratia from Rs 4 lakh to Rs 6 lakh for family members of people getting killed by jumbos.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)