BENGALURU: Elephant Proof Trenches (EPT) meant to stop elephants from straying out of forests boundaries has turned into a trash dumping yard in particular at Gopalaswamy Betta (GS Betta) one of the ranges of attached to Bandipur National Park, a tiger reserve. To make matters worse, visitors to the Gopalaswamy Betta, famous for Venugopal Swamy (Lord Krishna), a popular Hindu place of worship in Gundlupet taluk of Chamarajanagar district, use EPTs for peeing.
As many as a dozen makeshift eateries have come up at the entrance of Gopalaswamy Betta and the thrash left over by visitors at their eateries have been dumped in EPT just behind them. Plastic water bottles, paper tea cups, crushed sugarcane among other materials find place at the EPT dug up around the forest borders of GS Betta.
Bandipur Tiger Reserve officials made attempts to evict these eateries/shops but Gundlupet taluk administration came in the way and halted the eviction, said a shop-keeper running an eatery for about a decade.
Another shop-keeper said “We clean our shops and its surroundings but we do not know anything about trash dumped in EPTs.” The shop-keeper was tight-lipped on clearance of thrash in the EPTs by forest officials saying “I do not know anything about it.”
A visitor to GS Betta said “I came across many visitors peeing after parking their vehicles in the EPTs. There was no one from the forest department to stop visitors from doing so.” Pointing to the visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Bandipur Tiger Reserve a couple of years back, he said “Narendra Modi could have chosen any of the tiger reserves for going in a safari but he chose Bandipur but park officials have not maintained the cleanliness.”
A wildlife activist opined that the eateries/shops should be evicted from the entrance of the GS Betta to stop EPTs from further harm and the activist pointed to the signboard of the forest department appealing to visitors not to litter around.
“What is the purpose of installing signboards for namesake while doing nothing to stop nuisance in a tiger reserve which has attained fame in the country,” the wildlife activist said.
GS Betta Range Forest Officer Mallesh told Deccan Chronicle on Tuesday to initiate action against erring shop-keepers over dumping of trash in EPTs.