GUWAHATI, Feb 18 - Even as information of the State sending elephants to other States are there in the public domain, the State Forest Department has in a much startling revelation told RTI-cum-environment activist Rohit Choudhury that no information is available with it on the permissions granted for transportation of elephants to other States since January 1, 2006.
Media reports were there of the Forest Department�s bid to send four elephants to Gujarat in June last year to take part in a religious function. Again, Sonitpur-based RTI activist Dilip Chandra Nath was quoted by a section of the media saying that since 2007, 53 elephants were sent outside by the Forest Department of the State. But none of those elephants came back to the State.
Nath gave details on transportation of elephants between 2008 and 2010, when 36 elephants were sent outside the State and 32 of those elephants were sent to take part in religious functions.
Another media report stated that in total, 61 elephants were sent out of Assam between 2008 and 2015 and there is no record of the return of those elephants to the State.
In June last year, two women animal rights activists challenged the State Forest Department�s move to transport four elephants from Tinsukia to Ahmedabad by train to take part in a religious festival there. But the office of the Chief Wildlife Warden of the State told Rohit Choudhury in reply to his RTI query that there is no information with it on the transportation of elephants to other States.
In reply to Choudhury�s query on the total number of elephants brought back to the State from outside the State destinations they were sent to, the Office of the Chief Wildlife Warden said, �Any elephant has not been brought back to the state of Assam from outside the State.�
Significantly, the Office of the Chief Wildlife Warden also told Choudhury, in reply to an RTI query sent to it on November 16, 2019, that no Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) is available with the Assam Forest Department for maintaining the record of the domestic and departmental elephants. However, it maintained that there is �some guideline� available �for maintaining� of the departmental and domestic elephants in Assam.
It needs mention here that Choudhury had to wait for two months to get the reply to his RTI petition sent on November 16, 2019. He had to file the first appeal to get the replies to his RTI petition.
