3 days ago
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JAIPUR: The high-tech surveillance strategy installed to way large cats and curb poaching successful Ranthambore Tiger Reserve has virtually collapsed, with lone 1 of the 12 cameras inactive functional.
Installed nether the Wildlife Surveillance and Anti-Poaching System (WS&APS), the web was designed to screen astir 942 sq km, astir 71% of the reserve."Eleven cameras are lying defunct owed to method glitches. Despite repeated letters from the wood section to the section of accusation exertion (DoIT), issues stay unresolved. The strategy was designed to supply round-the-clock monitoring of delicate areas, but it has fallen abbreviated of its objectives owed to outdated exertion and insufficient attraction of the cameras," a elder authoritative said.
Commissioned successful 2017-18 astatine an estimated outgo of astir Rs 65 crore, the WS&APS was intended to way tigers and forestall amerciable activities specified arsenic mining, encroachments and disappearance of wildlife.Officials said the strategy has go mostly redundant. Unlike modern AI-enabled surveillance that tin automatically observe question and nonstop real-time alerts, the PTZ (pan, tilt, and zoom) cameras astatine Ranthambore necessitate continuous quality monitoring, limiting their effectiveness.
The task was ambitious successful design. Each of the 12 towers, ranging from 30 to 45m successful height, was meant to big 5 cameras with a monitoring radius of up to 5km.
Drones were procured arsenic portion of the strategy but, according to wood officials, they were ne'er deployed. In immoderate locations, cameras person been inactive for implicit 2 years. Over the past 3 years (between June 2022 and May 2024), 5 tigers - T79, T131, T138, T139 and T2401 - went missing nether suspicious circumstances. Activist Tapeshwar Singh Bhati said, "This is an illustration of however govt wastes nationalist wealth and forgets. Now they'll state it redundant and question caller technology."
