Directions came in response to a suo motu PIL by high court over the string of lion deaths in state
The Gujarat High Court on Monday sought information from the Union government about its long-term plan for the conservation of lions and the fund allocations that have been made for the purpose till date. The division bench of chief justice R Subhash Reddy and justice VM Pancholi also directed the centre to clarify whether fund allocation for the conservation of lions have increased or decreased over the years.
The directions came in response to a suo-motu public interest litigation (PIL) initiated by the high court over the unending lion deaths in the state. Notably, amicus curiae Hemang Shah contended before the court that centre provides Rs 15 lakh per tiger per year under Project Tiger, whereas lions are not that lucky and get a meagre sum of only Rs 95,000 per year.
During the hearing, additional advocate general Prakash Jani reiterated the steps taken by the state government to contain lion deaths. Jani pointed out that the lion deaths are confined to an area of around 150 sqkm out of the 1,888 sqkm area of Gir forest and 36 lions have been vaccinated so far. Shah, however, contended that there is no certainty that the virus is confined to a limited area and therefore, it was necessary that the entire lion population is vaccinated.
Following the arguments, the bench remarked: "Vaccination of lions is a specialised subject and we are not subject experts in the matter. Therefore, the opinions and suggestions of the experts need to be followed. We also read about a lion falling into a well yesterday and its a very serious matter". The court insisted that the state government must prepare action plan for the protection and conservation of lions and the same should be achieved in a time-bound manner. It also instructed the state government to provide updates on the construction of parapet walls around open-wells in the Gir region.
Interestingly, the state had earlier informed the court that there were around 50,517 open-wells in the three districts of Gir-Somnath, Amreli, and Junagarh, out of which parapet walls have been erected for 32,559 wells and 17,958 wells are devoid of any protection posing a major threat to the lion population.
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