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Staff at Ranthambore National Park complain of inadequate facilities, pay

Sawai Madhopur (Rajasthan): For those visiting Ranthambore National Park, it is a treat to sight tigers but for the ill-equipped and less paid frontline staff, it is a challenge to protect the endangered striped animals.

Not only is there a shortage of staff putting pressures on the existing one, most of them do not have access to basic facilities like clean water, health and transport, they alleged.

We don’t even get warm clothes like jackets during freezing winters, the staff said. Not all the guards are lucky to be provided with tube well, as many are forced to share water with the animals at the ponds in their areas. The guards have a wide range of duties to perform — from monitoring the movement of tigers and recording their pug marks, keeping an eye on possible poachers to warding off the villagers looking for woods and the cattle strayed in the forests. They are also inadequately armed to prevent themselves from a possible attack by poachers or animals as all they have is a wooden baton.

The park is home to a wide variety of birds, reptiles, leopards, dholes, monkeys, wild pigs, sambars and chitals besides tigers which easily becomes the target of poachers. — PTI

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