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New Delhi, March 27 (). Project Tiger, set up to successfully protect the endangered big cat, will complete 50 years next month.
Veteran politician and writer Karan Singh was instrumental in implementing the project in the late 1960s when he was in Indira Gandhi’s cabinet and was given the chairmanship of the Indian Board for Wildlife to develop national parks, sanctuaries and geological parks. was asked to handle. The board was established in 1952 to make suggestions to the government.
Karan Singh said, the first meeting was only introductory, but in the second meeting I was surprised that till then the lion was our national animal, clearly based on our national symbol Ashoka Pillar Lions.
But the lion is found only in one corner of India, while the tiger is spread from Himachal Pradesh to Kerala and from Gujarat to Meghalaya.
He said, therefore, we passed a resolution in our meeting, requesting the Government of India to change the national animal from lion to tiger. I took the proposal to Indira ji, who got it passed by the cabinet and made necessary amendments. Thus I was responsible for the tiger becoming our national animal.
Project Tiger was chaired by the prime minister, Karan Singh was the vice-chairman, and K.S. Shankhla was appointed as the first project director.
We started with nine tiger reserves and I had the privilege of inaugurating Project Tiger on April 1, 1973 at Corbett National Park, said Karan Singh.
According to official figures, there are 54 tiger reserves in the country at present, with the Ranipur Wildlife Sanctuary in Uttar Pradesh being declared as the 54th in the country and the fourth in the state.
The project led to an increase in tiger numbers from 1,411 in 2006 to 2,967 in 2018, accounting for 70 percent of the global tiger population.
SGK/ANM
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