 Avinash Azad
Early Times Report
Jammu, Nov 1: After spotting injured Leopard, the Raika Environment Park situated in Maha Maya hills was closed for public on Tuesday.
As usual, locals as well as tourist from outside the state today visited the park, but they found gate closed.
"I visited the environment park, two years back, during my current visit in Jammu, I planned to visit the park once again", said Anuj Raina from Ahmadabad. Raina, a Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) volunteer himself said , "I was disappointed, when I came to know that due to the visit of Deputy Conservator of Forest (DCF), the park had been closed for commoners", he said.
"Another family from Jammu city also visited the park to celebrate birthday of their son, but they too returned disappointed", said Raina, an IT professional, who works for Gujarat wild life deptt.
"I conduct wildlife census and also write for a wildlife magazine, published from Gujarat", he said and added the park can play an important role to develop tourism, but such incidents will definitely discourage the visitors. Another family which visited the park almost daily to serve water and fruits to monkeys and birds waited for more than two hours, but the park remained locked.
The family alleged that failing to maintain the park, the department discouraged the visitors by using such techniques. The department is actually trying to escape accountability.
"The horrible condition of the park presently indicates that least attention has been paid towards its beautification. The poorly maintained state-owned biodiversity park not only presents a sorry failure of department, but also reflects callous attitude to make Jammu as an attractive tourist destination for regional, interstate and global tourism", they added.
The Raika Environment Park was established in 1995 when the planning department in 1991 granted approval to the department of Ecology, Environment and Remote Sensing for the development of Environment Park in Maha Maya forests.
A K Singh, Principal Chief Conservator of Forest, J&K when contacted said that he was not aware about it. However, when contacted, B. Mohandas, Environment Soil Conservationist, Jammu said that the park was closed due to presence of an injured leopard in the park.
Astonishingly, the department claims that the park was closed due to presence of injured leopard inside the park, the forest officials inside the park were pleasing DCF, by restricting commoners. |
