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Bandhavgarh tourism policies

Changes in Bandhavgarh tourism policies

Bandhavgarh shot into fame with Charger and Sita sightings in mid nineties, ever since there has been no looking back for this national park in MP. The Tiger density in the Tala zone of this park puts rest of the parks to shame. A rare jewel as far as Tiger sightings are concerned, Bandhavgarh attracted lot of media attention for the number of Tigers one would see in each Safari. Tourists would come out of the park saying they saw 4, some 5, some even 6 in just one safari. Sounds unbelievable, but it is 100% true.

With such beautiful sightings happening how could tourists stay away, in last 4-5 years the number of tourists coming to Bandhavgarh has gone up almost 4-5 times. I recall doing safaris in the month of May in Bandhavgarh about 6-7 years back, when one would hardly see any Jeeps in May, some days in the month the gates of the park would not be opened as there were no tourists around. But this is all history now. Today, any month, any week, any day, Tala zone is packed to capacity. If the forest deptt decides to open the park in monsoons trust me the park will be full with tourists.

With so many tourists the pressure on the park, on the management and also on the Tigers increased many folds. As Newton said few centuries back, every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so be it in Bandhavgarh. Increased tourism brought in some rules and regulations, primarily to decongest the park and space out the tourists. In my opinion the park management did more than a wonderful job over last 3-4 years as far as tourism management was concerned, without decreasing the Tiger sightings.

But now the time had come when some more stern decisions had to be taken in interest of the park, tourists, and most importantly Tigers. After all Wildlife Tourism can survive only if Wildlife survives. So the current year has seen some unprecedented changes. One of the most important one has been doing away with Tiger shows in the Tala zone. A move which might not go down too well with the tourists right now, but in long run its importance can be measured. So the Elephants which were busy ferrying tourists on their backs have now been moved to another adjoining range, namely, Magdhi. Most of the conservationists and Tiger lovers have welcomed this move. Tala range has now got a healthy density of Tigers, we hope that Magdhi, Khitauli, Kalva, and Panpatha also follow suit.

Another important change that has been brought about is introduction of routes for the entire duration of the safari, in morning and afternoon. This has spread the tourist jeeps very thin, and gone are the traffic jams in the Tala range and also some unsavory accidents.

My request to all tourists is to have patience, and please not to expect seeing Tigers in every safari, which they had got habituated over last few years. After all we can enjoy nature and Tigers in the wilderness, till the time it is wilderness and not a safari park.

---- Sharad Vats ---