In a first, Kaziranga staff get satellite phones to curb poaching

Guwahati, Aug. 12 (IANS): The Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve (KNP and TR) in Assam has become the first national park in the country to be equipped with 10 satellite phones to give its security personnel and forest staff an edge over poachers, officials said on Thursday.

A senior official of KNP and TR, which is home to more than 2,400 Indian rhinos, said that 10 satellite phones were handed over to the forest staff by Assam Chief Secretary Jishnu Barua on Wednesday, which have already been activated.

The satellite phones, procured at an estimated cost of INR 16 lakh would be used in the park’s six ranges with no wireless facility or poor mobile connectivity.

“The KNP & TR has become the first national park in the country to use satellite phones as this facility is generally used by the law enforcing agencies for serious security or disaster-related situations. Common people are barred from using satellite phones in India,” the official said.

He said the Assam State Disaster Management Authority has procured the 10 satellite phones for KNP and TR staff with BSNL as the service provider.

BSNL engineers have trained the forest department staff how to operate the satellite phones in the shadow areas and grooves, where mobile phones do not function.

“With the availability of satellite phones deep inside the national park, the communication bottleneck in supervising the security of the park would be removed,” the official said.

The decision to arm the forest staff with sattelite phones was taken at a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on May 27, in which Minister for Environment and Forest, Parimal Suklaibaidya, was also present. The step was taken to boost anti-poaching measures.

Suklaibaidya said in a statement that the satellite phones would be immensely useful for coordination.

“There shouldn’t be any barrier to communication and hence using satellite phones is a necessity in KNP and TR given its sprawling area. The satellite phones will give an edge to the forest staff over poachers and also during emergencies like floods,” said the minister.

Set up in 1908, the Kaziranga national park, one of India’s seven UNESCO world heritage sites in the natural and environment category since 1985, extends across Assam’s Golaghat, Nagaon, Sonitpur, Biswanath and Karbi Anglong districts along the Arunachal Pradesh border.

Besides rhinos, it has tigers, elephants, Asiatic buffalos, swamp deer, wild boars, hog deer, porcupines and other endangered animals and reptiles.

After the government and the forest authorities took a series of steps, including increasing the number of security personnel inside the park, poaching activities have drastically reduced over the past few years.

At least 12 rhino poachers and smugglers of rhino horns have been arrested by the Assam police this year, leading to the recovery of sophisticated arms and ammunition from their possession.