Raisen: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav inaugurated the Ratapani Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh's Raisen district on Friday. The grand event came nearly 10 days after the Centre designated Ratapani as the state's eighth Tiger Reserve. It is the eighth tiger reserve in the state after Kanha, Satpura, Bandhavgarh, Pench, Sanjay Dubri, Panna and Veerangana Durgavati. The state government issued the notification for Ratapani Reserve on December 2. With the formation of the tiger reserve, wildlife can be managed in a better way by receiving a budget from the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), an official release said. The total area of the Ratapani Tiger Reserve will be 1,271.465 sq km, it said. Following directives of Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, the Ratapani forest has been declared as the eighth tiger reserve of the state, the release said.
"Its proximity to the capital will not only generate employment opportunities through tourism but also facilitate the effective conservation of forests, tigers, and other wildlife," said Yadav. He said that to minimise inconvenience for villagers, the villages within the Ratapani sanctuary have been included in the buffer area instead of the core zone. He emphasised that the establishment of the tiger reserve would bring international recognition to Ratapani and to Bhopal as the "Tiger Capital."
About Ratapani Tiger Reserve
The Ratapani Tiger Reserve has a core area of 763.812 sq km and a buffer area of 507.653 sq km, it said. Nine villages, geographically located in the tiger reserve, are not included in the core area in the notification of the sanctuary, the release said. With the formation of the Ratapani Tiger Reserve, its entire core area is within the boundary of the Ratapani Tiger Sanctuary. This will not change the current rights of the villagers, it said.
Ratapani forest is located in the Raisen district, adjoining the state capital Bhopal. On December 1, the NTCA's technical committee approved the proposal to designate Madhav National Park in MP's Shivpuri district also as a tiger reserve. The state government has yet to issue a notification for it. The Kuno National Park is the only abode of cheetahs in the country. It is located in Sheopur district and is close to the Madhav National Park. As per the 'Status of Tigers: Co-predators & Prey in India-2022' report released by the NTCA and Wildlife Institute of India, the tiger population in Madhya Pradesh is estimated to be 785, the highest in the country, followed by Karnataka-563 and Uttarakhand-560.
