It has caused significant damage to the ripening rice crops in areas including Barahakshetra Municipality, Ramdhuni Municipality, and Koshi Rural Municipality.
What you should know
Local farmers have been terrorized by the recent large groups of wild elephants entering settlements and farmlands in various parts of Sunsari.
The paddy crop that is about to ripen in Barahakshetra Municipality, Ramdhuni Municipality and Koshi Rural Municipality has been severely damaged. More than 50 elephants from India have been entering settlements in areas including Jabdi, Simarawana, Nadaha and other areas of Barahakshetra-2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 and are destroying paddy, vegetable and fruit crops.
Elephants have trampled the paddy crop of farmers including Basnet, Vigyan Thapa and Hemraj Bista, who are young men from Barahakshetra-2, covering an area of about 5 bighas. Basnet says, ‘This year, the paddy crop is all gone, and we have to buy rice for food. There has been more than two lakh rupees of damage, but we will not even get five thousand rupees in compensation.’
Elephants have also destroyed 10 kaththas of paddy crop of 65-year-old Dilkumari Limbu. Despite completing all the procedures and registering the application, she received only Rs 5,000 in compensation after about a year. 'Neither relief comes quickly, nor does the government take any initiative to control the animals,' she complained.
According to locals, the District Forest Office has not shown any effective initiative to control the elephants. According to Police Inspector Diwas Kunwar of the Area Police Office Mahendranagar, elephants are continuously causing damage to areas including Jabdi, Punarbas, Railway, Nadaha, Simravana, Amaha.
According to Kedar Prasad Das, ranger of the Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve, crops in an area of 250 bighas were damaged last year alone. He said that although compensation worth Rs 1.55 million was registered for 315 victims in the same year, the amount was distributed to only 260 people due to budget shortage.
According to Praveen Shrestha, information officer at the Agricultural Knowledge Center, Sunsari, there is no official data on crop damage caused by wild animals. He said that farmers do not come to report because they know that they will not receive relief.
