Raipur, Aug 4 (PTI) Chhattisgarh Forest Minister Mohammed Akbar on Wednesday denied allegations that his department had procured paddy at higher rates to serve it to wild elephants in a bid to prevent them from entering villages in search of food.

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Addressing a press conference, the minister said the department has started offering paddy to pachyderms as an experiment in some districts, and so far, the move has been successful in only one district.

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“The pilot project is aimed at reducing human-elephant conflicts. Providing fodder to wild elephants away from human settlements will prevent them from entering villages in search of food," Akbar said.

Human-elephant conflicts in the state's northern region have been a major cause for concern for over a decade. The menace has spread to some districts in the central part of the state in the last few years.

“The forest department has not been procuring paddy for the experiment. Surplus paddy procured by the state's food department at minimum support price (from farmers) is being transferred to the forest department through a department-to-department procedure,” he said.

The minister, however, said the paddy will be transferred from one department to another based on the rate fixed by the state food department.

When asked about the BJP's allegations that paddy had been bought at higher rates, Akbar said questions would have been raised if the department had procured paddy at throwaway rate from the open market.

The movement of 307 elephants in 16 herds has been reported from different parts of the state, especially Surajpur, Raigarh, Korba, Balrampur, Jashpur, Gariaband and Balod districts, he said, adding that radio collars have been placed on nine elephants.

“As a part of the experiment, the department had recently kept paddy in open areas away from human settlements at 14 locations in Surajpur, Dharamjaigarh (Raigarh) and Balod forest divisions to lure elephants. Of these places, elephants consumed paddy at only three locations in Surajpur," the minister said.

Based on the success of the initial experiment, the move will be replicated in other areas, he added.

When contacted, state's Food Minister Amarjeet Bhagat told PTI that the forest department has two options either to take paddy at MSP (which was Rs 1,868 per quintal for common grade paddy during the previous kharif season) or at the rate fixed in auctioning of paddy.

However, the MSP seems to be the best option for them, Bhagat said.

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

Prima facie, it seems the project has been made for committing corruption, Kaushik alleged.

As per the Chhattisgarh government's records, 204 people have been killed in elephant attacks, while 45 pachyderms had died in the state in the last three years.

In this period, the state also reported 66,582 incidents of elephants damaging crops, 5,047 of damaging houses and 3,151 of damaging other properties.

(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)