Bhubaneswar, July 12 (PTI): In a bid to contain elephant intrusion into human habitations, the Orissa government has initiated a series of measures including easy availability of food and water inside jungles for the pachyderms.

Elephants were mostly coming out of forests and entering human habitations in search of food and water, Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik, said in the State Assembly last night.

"The government is taking steps to create at least 200 new water bodies in different elephant habitats where fodder species suitable for the tuskers were being grown in specific pockets," he said while replying to the debate on the demand for budgetary grants relating to the forest and environment department.

This apart, the forest officials were asked to ensure eradication of weeds from the habitats, he said.

The Chief Minister said that anti-depredation and anti-poaching measures had been enforced in all protected areas in the State by deploying squads to take up regular patrolling in vulnerable areas and also to act as a strike force.

He said at least 57 squads were deployed covering all sensitive pockets during 2006-07, each squad comprising one or two armed forest officers and a number of daily wage workers.

The squads were also provided with vehicles, VHF sets, arms and ammunitions. +The squad members were provided with proper camping facilities in their interior stations+, he said.

The Chief Minister said that anti-depredation squads were asked to drive the elephants back to forests along with local Vana Surakhya Samiti (VSS) members with help of crackers, drum beats, torches, search light and flare guns. The squad also spread awareness among local public to avoid casualties due to elephant depredation, he said.

In an attempt to keep the elephants within their habitat boundaries, the government had also erected solar-powered electric fencing, elephant proof trench and stone walls in Dhenkanal, Keonjhar and Chandka forest divisions.

Altogether, 1600 km of trench fencing and stone fencing work would be taken up around the forests to provide employment to the people and reduce man-animal conflict such as straying of elephants into human habitations, he said.

Elephant trackers were also engaged in vulnerable places to track the movement of elephants to get advance information about elephant depredation which helped authorities to take preventive measures to check the problem.

Patnaik also said that regular monitoring and surveillance of all suspected persons through network of informers had been organized in every division for checking elephant poaching.

He informed the House that the number of tigers in the state in 2004 was estimated to have gone up to 192 from 142 which was estimated in 1972.

The Central Government had now decided to adopt a new method estimating population size of tigers in different habitats.

The Wildlife Institute of India was conducting this study, and the result of this exercise in Orissa is yet to be received, he said.