Betla Wildlife Sanctuary is known for its tigers

Betla, Feb. 2: Tourists to Betla seem to follow the way of the tiger. As the flow of visitors to Betla suggests, the number of tourists has been stagnant over the past few years.

As in the case of a lone tigress the only sighting in the entire forest reserve lately, tourists also have become a rarity.

“Most visitors come from nearby places to spend a day. We seldom get tourists who spend 3-4 nights, as they did in the past,” said forest guide Mohammad Mustaq. According to records, the number of tourists during the last four years were 12,700,14,746, 16,791 and 16,000, respectively. The number of foreign tourists during these years has been 70, 67, 10and 15, respectively.

According to the tour operators, the deterioration in law and order was responsible for the fall in the number of tourists. Most of the hotels have not received a single customer for several months. “The last time I visited this place was in 1992. Since then, I have not brought a single tourist to this place from Ranchi. Earlier, people used to book vehicles in advance,” said taxi driver Narayan Das, who works with a travel agency based in the capital. Most visitors to the Betla forests were from West Bengal. A Bihar Tourism Development Corporation-run hotel manager Tej Narayan Singh said Bengali newspapers too were responsible for the decline of tourism in Betla. “If an untoward incident takes place 40 km from here, the newspapers report that the incident took place in the Betla forest area,” he said.