By IANS,
Guwahati : The Central government has increased its share of funding from the existing 50 percent to 90 percent for northeastern states under the Project Tiger scheme.
This was recently conveyed by Union Minister of State for Environment & Forests Jayanthi Natarajan to Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi.
According to the communication, the northeastern states will now have to spend only 10 percent share under the scheme for tiger conservation.
Project Tiger aims at ensuring a viable population of tigers in their natural habitat.
There are six tiger reserves in the northeast – three in Assam (Kaziranga tiger reserve, Manas tiger reserve and Nameri tiger reserve), two in Arunachal Pradesh (Namdapha tiger reserve and Pakhui tiger reserve) and one in Mizoram (Dampa tiger reserve).
Although the exact number of the big cats in the region is not known, the 2010 tiger census – which was conducted countrywide – estimated the presence of 130-150 big cats in the six tiger reserves.
The Assam chief minister had earlier submitted a memorandum to the prime minister, which contained a proposal for reducing the state’s share to 10 per cent in the Centrally-sponsored scheme.