‘Use solar fences to curb jumbo deaths’

Cuttack: The Orissa high court has ordered replacing at the earliest of electric fences with solar-powered ones in villages which witness movement of wild animals to prevent elephant deaths due to electrocution.
The two-judge bench of Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice Gourishankar Satapathy on Monday said, “In the considered view of the court, not enough steps have been taken to prevent deaths of elephants due to electrocution in Odisha.”
“This is despite the Comprehensive Action Plan (CAP) being made available to the electricity distribution companies (discoms) for nearly two months now,” the bench said
Accordingly, the bench directed the CEOs of the four discoms to roll out a plan for replacing electric fences with solar-powered ones.
The HC was hearing four similar PILs filed by Gita Rout (2022), Mrinalini Padhi (2015), Balgopal Mishra (2013) and Dwija Dalpati (2015) highlighting the deaths of elephants.
Official figures submitted in court indicated that 18 elephants had died during the last two months and four of them were due to electrocution. During this period, 20 people lost their lives due to attacks by elephants.
For replacing the electric fences with solar-powered ones, the bench expected the CEOs of the four discoms to immediately convene a meeting within a week in which the chairperson of the Joint Task Force will also participate and chalk out a time-bound plan for completing the survey of all villages in their respective zones which have witnessed the movement of wild animals, attacks by wild animals, destruction of crops and deaths of animals due to electrocution.
The bench said, “It is absolutely essential for the discoms to immediately identify all such instances of illegal hooking of electricity transmission lines to power such electric fences put up in the villages and discontinue the practice forthwith.”
“The Court would like to be informed by the next date (July 19) of the exact extent of such DC fences that have been erected in place of the electric fences which were earlier being used,” the bench directed, while endorsing the suggestions of SNEHA (Support for Network and Extension Help Agency. SNEHA, which has been working on human-elephant conflict issues in Karnataka, was engaged by the discoms to undertake a study in two districts — Dhenkanal and Angul.
Use of alternate 6V solar or DC powered fence setup will “repel the wildlife or set off an alarm instead of creating causality”, SNEHA had stated in its report.