Animals take back control of Jaigeer village in PTR after locals vacate area

Daltonganj: Residents living at Palamu Tiger Reserve's Jaigeer village, under the Garu East range, have been relocated to Polpol, a non-tiger reserve area.

Deputy director of the south division of PTR, Kumar Ashish, said, "There were 22 families living here at Jaigeer, 1,000 metres high from the ground. The total population of these 22 families was around 160." Jaigeer village is the first major relocation of the PTR in its fifty years of existence, claimed Ashish.

It took us three years to convince and motivate its residents to leave this place, added Ashish. Coming down and going up 1,000 metres every day was their destiny, either for earning wages, groceries, or medicines. Here, the 'khatiya' (wooden charpoy) of the families doubled up as a community ambulance, said Ashish. Sick, pregnant women, and elderly men and women were transported by khatiya from the top to the ground. Life here was an ordeal every day. Survival was most tough and challenging.

"It's more than a week now that Jaigeer is free of human habitation. Wildlife has started making its foray into the empty space of Jaigeer," said Ashish. Quoting a resident who is one among the four guarding food grains and livestock, he said, "A leopard came to Jaigeer and took away a goat." When Jaigeer village was buzzing with human activities, the leopard kept itself at bay. Bears too avoided coming to Jaigeer. But now, leopards are making an outreach here. Bears are no longer behind.

Jaigeer will be developed into a suitable home for sambhar and Indian gaur. Bears are too many around Jaigeer, and sambhars and Indian gaurs have no existential conflict with the bears at all, said PTR sources. A grassland expert, R K Pandey, who visited Jaigeer very recently, found 'enormous scope for grasslands here,' informed Ashish. Pandey has advised the PTR team to first 'level the ground left by the humans so that rainwater or surface water doesn't stay put. Stagnant water is harmful to the upcoming grasslands.'

The typical mid houses numbering 22 would be demolished here once grains and livestock are shifted to Polpol. Sources said if there is anyone who has succeeded in lifting the 22 houses from here to Polpol in all these years, then undisputedly it's Kumar Ashish, an IFS officer of the Jharkhand cadre.

On being asked about their Sarna Asthal there at Jaigeer, Ashish said, "They had one such there. The faithful have told me they would say their last offerings to Sarna Asthal today, Sunday. They would set up their Sarna Asthal at their new place of dwelling, Polpol." End.