Fear gripped Khammam thogu, Budugula and various other interior villages located on the fringes of the reserve forest surrounding the Manuguru opencast project (OC-II) after the local security guards of the Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL)'s OC-II reported sighting a tiger within the precincts of the opencast project around Wednesday midnight. Alerted by the OC-II staff, the forest sleuths of the Manuguru forest range collected the pugmarks of the tiger found on the periphery of the OC-II on Thursday. The security guards of the OC-II reportedly heard the roar of a tiger on the outer periphery of the opencast project the same night.
This has prompted the forest staff to ramp up measures to ensure the safety of the big cat and also those residing in the areas in the vicinity of the reserve forest abutting the Manuguru OC-II. Sources in the forest department said the tiger which strayed into the OC-II premises on Wednesday midnight before vanishing into the nearby reserve forest appears to be the same big cat that was sighted in Gundala, Mondikunta and other forest areas in the district in the last three weeks.
The sighting of the big cat in the opencast mining area at Pagideru village just a few kilometers away from the mandal headquarters town of Manuguru triggered scare among people living in Bugga, Khammamthogu and several other remote villages dotting the reserve forest area in the mandal, sources said. When contacted, the Manuguru forest range officer Prasad Rao told The Hindu that an awareness campaign was conducted in the forest fringe villages to sensitise the villagers about the safety precautions to ensure the protection of the tiger. We have visited some of the villages situated along the reserve forest as part of a poster campaign to make the villagers aware of the provisions of the Wild Life Protection Act, 1972, he said.
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