GUWAHATI, AUG 21: A 13-month old elephant was rescued from a pit near Digboi Oil field in upper Assam Tinsukia district on Saturday night.
According to sources, the baby elephant was jointly rescued by a team of forest department, member of NGOs and security personnel from IOCL.
Bijay Gogoi, an environmentalist, who was also the part of the rescue operation said, “We don’t know when the baby elephant was fallen in the pit but we suspected that two to three days ago, the baby elephant was fallen in the pit. The baby elephant belongs to Upper Dehing reserve forest east block,”.
He said, “The elephant corridor was affected after the construction of IOCL terminal at Digboi oil field area. The elephants which roamed from one place to another now facing problem for their movement,”.
“The pit was built during the British rule in India and many pit are found still open, the OIL has not done anything to fill up the pit. The baby elephant fall in the pit which comes with the elephant herd. We urged the OIL to fill up the pit which are lying still open,” Bijay Gogoi asserted.
Speaking to this Correspondent, DFO, Digboi Forest Division Ranjit Ram said, “We have successfully rescued the baby elephant and released him into the wild. We have talked to OIL and asked them to fill up the pit which are still open. I have also instructed our forest officials to search the open pit and take measures to fill it,”.
“The movement of elephant are affected due to the construction of IOCL terminal at Golai elephant corridor. Due to the blockage of the corridor, the elephants are facing movement problem from Upper Dehing Reserve forest East block to West Block,” the DFO said.
Meanwhile, the Digboi forest division has taken up numerous awareness related programmes to curb man-elephant conflict.
“Due to the blockage of Golai corridor, the elephant movement was affected and they comes towards Digboi Muliabarry human settlement area resulting in man-elephant conflict,” said a resident.