Uttranchal Chief Minister Nityanand Swami admits that unpardonable lapses by officials led to the killing of five elephants at the Jim Corbett National Park last week.

In an exclusive interview with Special Correspondent Onkar Singh, the chief minister agreed that park officials were asleep while poachers killed elephants and stole ivory at will.

What action do you propose to take against officials of the Corbett park who did nothing to prevent the killing of the elephants, despite the fact they knew about it last December. Were they sleeping?

I definitely agree there was a serious lapse. I also agree they were in deep slumber while poachers were having a field day. They were sleeping.

I have taken this matter very seriously. As chief minister I am committed to the protection of wildlife in the state. I met senior police officials yesterday and told them they would be held responsible if any such incident happened again.

I feel sorry five tuskers have been killed and that my officials did not do anything about it, despite the fact they knew about the poaching last December when two tuskers were killed by poachers.

Who do you think is involved? Are you going to take any action against the park officials?

I have been told the police suspects the involvement of some ranger or forest official, even some locals living within the ambit of Corbett park.

I am going to remove some park officials very soon. It would not be proper to remove them immediately because it would hamper the investigations. But action will be taken against them. That is for sure. The combing operations are on and we are hopeful it will yield results. We have also asked for sniffer dogs to trace the culprits.

What are you doing to ensure that poachers do not have a free run in the national parks in Uttranchal?

To deal with this problem, the state government has decided to post a senior officer of the IAS/IPS in charge of security. The park is yet to be handed over fully to us by the UP government. In addition, we are filling up 124 pending vacancies in the park security set-up. We are giving them more weapons and making patrolling more effective. We are doing everything to ensure that no more animals are killed by poachers.

We want to restructure the forest department and make it more effective and answerable. We plan to increase the punishment and fine for poaching. The fines are going to be very heavy.

Your government has banned the construction of tall buildings in the state. Why?

After watching the disaster in Gujarat where a number of multi-storeyed buildings fell in a matter of minutes, my government has decided to ban construction of skyscrapers in the state as a precautionary measure.

We have seen a bad and sorry experience in Gujarat. I do not want the people of my state to undergo such tragedy. We are the first state in the country that has created a separate ministry to deal with natural disasters. A fund is being allocated for this ministry. This includes Rs 10 crore from the chief minister's relief fund.

Isn't the builders lobby up in arms against your decision?

I do not care about any such lobby. The interest of the people comes first. We have taken a decision and are going to stick to it. We have to do several things. If we keep looking at what one lobby or the other is doing, then I may not be able to do anything.

Are you going to review the construction of the Tehri dam which falls under seismic Zone V?

The Tehri dam may have been built under the suspect zone, but the construction of this dam has been examined by experts several times. They have come to the conclusion that it is safe. It has been built with clay, and not by stones and rocks.

Uttranchal has experienced two major earthquakes in recent times. They rocked the Uttarkashi and Chamoli regions. Though many people perished, there was no damage to the Tehri project.

Design: Dominic Xavier

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