Rajpipla: As population of leopards is increasing in forest area of Narmada district, the government has made a plan to separate panthers from human population by creating panther park.

Rs 2 crore panther park will come up in forest area of Rajpipla in Central Gujarat. The project which was stalled for several years is back thanks to the efforts by Shabdasharan Tadvi and forest official Dr Sandip Kumar.

The state has one such panther park at Pavagadh already which has presence of 7 leopards. Most of them have been caught from Narmada district.

According to forest department, Tilakvada taluka has 8-10 leopards while Jiorpati has 3-4 leopards, Gopalpura, Fulvadi has 2 leopards, Naghatpor has 3-4 leopards, Zarvani has 4-5 leopards, Sagai has 1 leopard. In total the Narmada district has around 25-30 leopards.

The leopards take shelter in banana, sugarcane farms. After cutting of crops, they come out in open and tend to attack the humans. Sometimes, due to lack of water in forest area, they enter farm areas.

DeshGujarat