Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik (centre), Assam tribal welfare minister Pramila Rani Brahma (left) and Union minister of tribal affairs Kantilal Bhuria at the two-day conference of chief ministers and state ministers to review the implementation of forest rights and tribal development programmes in New Delhi on Wednesday. (PTI)

Guwahati, Nov. 4: The state forest department will request the Centre to provide complete reimbursement of ex gratia paid to the families of those killed by elephants and compensation for crops damaged by herds of wild elephants.

It will also urge the Centre to give Dispur permission to capture wild elephants.

This year the elephants have so far killed 20 people in Assam.

The requests will be discussed at a meeting convened by the Union ministry of environment and forests in Delhi tomorrow.

Forest officials of elephant-range states with a large elephant population, will be attending the meet.

“We have requested the Centre to provide us complete reimbursement of ex gratia and compensation for crops damaged in cases pertaining to human-elephant conflict,” a senior forest official told this correspondent .

At present, the amount available under Project Elephant is not enough to meet the needs.

Assam is finding it hard to tackle the man-elephant conflict with an increase in incidents of elephants killing villagers.

The state is paying Rs 40,000 to the relatives of the victims but the Centre wants the amount to be hiked to Rs 1 lakh. Working out a compensation package is not an easy task as the amount of loss is difficult to estimate.

Damage to the crops is maximum whenever the elephants attack villages. A sum of Rs 5,000 is paid to each affected family.

At present, the number of elephants in Assam is put at 5,281 compared to 5,246 in 2002 and 5,524 in 1993.

Of the 5,281 elephants, 3,051 were found in the protected areas, 2,086 in the managed forests and 144 in the revenue areas.

After last year’s elephant census, it came to light that the animals had killed 239 people in Assam in the past five years while 280 elephants of both sexes and of different ages were recorded to have been poisoned to death, electrocuted, run over by trains or died a natural death.

The decision to hold the meeting was taken at a national conference on forest ministers a few months back when various states pointed out that the man-elephant conflict was becoming a matter of concern.

“We have once again requested the Centre to give us permission to capture wild elephants,” the official said.