Raipur, Aug 3 (PTI) The Chhattisgarh forest department is planning to buy paddy for wild elephants which routinely enter villages in the northern parts of the state and damage property and at times kill people, an official said on Tuesday.

The Chhattisgarh State Cooperative Marketing Federation (MARKFED), which buys paddy from farmers at minimum support price, has agreed to provide paddy to the forest department at Rs 2,095.83 per quintal, he said.

He said the issue was most acute in districts like Surguja, Raigarh, Korba, Surajpur, Mahasamund, Dhamtari, Gariaband, Balod, Balrampur and Kanker, with government records showing that 204 people and 45 jumbos have died in such conflicts in 2018, 2019 and 2020.

During this period, 66,582 cases of elephants destroying crops, 5,047 cases of damage to houses and 3,151 cases of destruction of other properties were also reported.

"Elephants generally stray into villages in search of food, including paddy, and destroy houses and crops. Such incidents also cause loss of lives. Providing them fodder away from human-habitats can help reduce man-animal conflict. Therefore, the department has decided to keep paddy in forests to stop elephants from entering villages,” PV Narsingh Rao, state Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (Wildlife) told PTI on Tuesday.

"Initially, it will be done on a pilot basis in some villages and based on the behaviour of elephants, it will be replicated in other areas. Once paddy is supplied to us by Markfed, the concept can be implemented," he said.

Markfed officials said the agency had offered to supply paddy to the forest department at Rs 2095.83 per quintal and had also given names of storage centres from where it can be collected.

Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly and senior BJP leader Dharamlal Kaushik said this was a move by the Congress government in the state to get rid of rotten and sprouted paddy at higher rates.

"When good paddy is auctioned in the open market at Rs 1,400 per quintal, then why is the forest department procuring rotten paddy at higher rates? Prima facie, it seems the project has been made for committing corruption,” Kaushik alleged.

(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)