A man puts up a signboard at the site of bamboo plantation at Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary on Tuesday. (Bhola Prasad)

The monsoon meal will prove to be especially tastier for jumbos of Dalma this year.

Bamboo buds — a favourite of the elephants — will be found in abundance at the Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary this July with the forest department planning to take up plantation drive in core areas for the first time.

The Ranchi wildlife division has already started planting around 1,000 bamboo plants at two sites in Khokro and one in Tisri inside the 192sqkm sanctuary, which is home to 127 elephants. While 748 plants have been earmarked for Khokro, 242 have been set aside for Tisri. Daily wagers have been roped in for plantation work.

Spadework has already begun. “A majority of pits have been dug. We hope to wrap up the digging process by next month. Elephants generally feast on buds of bamboo plants,” Dalma forester S.N. Singh said.

According to him, the herds would stay put in the sanctuary till September-October after which they would migrate to Bengal. “So we have to make adequate arrangements. The plants that have been procured from Galudih are four to five feet tall. The idea is to make the buds available to the elephants,” he added.

Dalma range officer Mangal Kashyap confirmed that this was the first time they were targeting core areas of the sanctuary. “The idea is to give more fodder to the elephants who often stray into other areas in search of food. We will take up a massive plantation drive across the sanctuary in the future,” he said.

Singh added that bamboo plants existed in the sanctuary, including pockets near Pinderabera guesthouse, but these have grown naturally. Last year, the Ranchi wildlife division planted over 90,000 bamboo saplings at nine sites but these were buffer zones.

However, the herds, who go crazy at the site of bamboo, gobbled up over 5,000 freshly planted rhizomes of the bamboo at Bara Bandh within a fortnight of their being sown.

“The herds get ecstatic when they spot bamboo buds,” forest guard Kaleswar Bhagat said, adding that besides bamboo, elephants also like chironjee and kendu plants.