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A paisa-vasool action..Page 4 SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2019 INTERNET EDITION : www.dailyexcelsior.com/magazine Shirdhi Sai, incarnation..Page 3 Wild animals that die on roads Amit Sharma Group in 2015, to study the impact of roads on Indian wildlife. A team of five wildlife conservationists led by Mr. RTA's this is how the doctor's categorize any R. Mohammed Saleem, had undertaken a forty-four-day injury/death that occur on the road, because expedition, traveling more than 17,000 kilometres across of vehicular hit. RTA stands for "Road Traffic 22 states to study and spread awareness on roadkill. The question comes what to do? Under "The Jammu Accident", in India RTA/Traffic Collisions are and Kashmir Wildlife Protection Act 1978 AA 2002" a major source of deaths, injuries and property killing of any wild animal by any means is an offence, until damage every year. and unless proves otherwise. Since, it is very difficult to know who has hit the wild animal on the road, making it The Report on Road Safety, published by the World impossible to convict the culprit in the absence of the con- Health Organization (WHO) identified the major causes of crete evidences. traffic collisions as rash driving/over the speed limit, driving The Department of Wildlife Protection, J&K Govt. has under the influence of liquor/drugs, use of mobile phones, placed sign boards on the road sides with the messages not using helmets/safety belts, jumping red lights, wrong "you are passing through wildlife areas, drive slowly". We crossing, over loading etc. The moment there is any road must drive slowly and carefully in wildlife/forest areas, accident in any part of the state, it gets flashed in the local the speed limit should not be more than 20 km per hour. social media, mostly through What's App as it involves the And in certain cases the night traffic on the highways life of a human being and every effort is made to reach to the passing through the protected areas/ national parks have administration or any other help for the rescue of the been banned, like the ban on night traffic on National injured. Highway 766 passing through the Bandipur National The life of a human being cannot be compared to any Park. The other option could be to have speed breakers other living being on this planet, but there are other living after every 100 metres on the roads passing through beings also, who are the silent victims of these traffic col- Protected Areas/forests so that the drivers will not get a lisions, "the wild animals", which gets killed on the road chance to overspeed and accidents can be avoided. and are categorised as "Road Kills". Canadian writer Timothy Findley, wrote about the The rapid expansion of roads and highways through experience of seeing killed animals on highways during Forest Areas or Protected Areas, is one of the most serious travels: "The dead by the road, or on it, testify to the pres- threats to the wildlife today. The road kills have been ence of man. Their little gestures of pain-paws, wings and recorded almost from every state of the country and not Excelsior/Rakesh tails-are the saddest, the loneliest, most forlorn postures necessarily within the Protected Areas/Forests, as the wild of the dead I can imagine. When we have stopped killing animals do not recognise these administratively created snakes, monitor lizards; frogs and toads; birds mostly blue decoys masquerading as snakes and turtles. "Indeed, sev- animals as though they were so much refuse, we will stop boundaries. More so, the animals don't recognise road as a rock pigeons, mynas; mammals like monkeys, civets, neel- eral drivers were observed speeding up and positioning killing one another. But the highways show our indiffer- hazard. In our state, roads do pass through the forests and gai, sambar, jackals, hares and to an extent the Leopards, their vehicles to hit the reptiles". Male drivers hit the rep- ence to death, so long as it is someone else's. It is an atti- even through the Protected Areas like the Jammu- have been killed in these traffic collisions in Jammu and tile decoys more often than female drivers. On a more tude of the human mind I do not grasp. Udhampur Road passes through two Wildlife Sanctuaries Kashmir. The feeding of monkeys along the national high- compassionate note, 3.4% of male drivers and 3% of According to Sh. Suresh Kumar Gupta IFS (Chief i.e. Ramnagar Wildlife Sanctuary and the Nandini Wildlife ways by the public especially on Tuesday female drivers stopped to rescue the rep- Wildlife Warden, J&K), we humans share our world with Sanctuary, road from Surinsar to Mansar passes through also results in injury or even death because tile decoys. other creatures and have more cognitive abilities than any the Surinsar-Mansar Wildlife Sanctuary and the Mughal WILDLIFE WEEK of vehicular hit. However, in our society, most of us other living beings, therefore it becomes our prime road passes through the Heerpora Wildlife Sanctuary. At least, in our country, nobody will kill might have heard that if a snake is acci- responsibility to drive carefully and avoid such accidents Although, these roads are the lifeline of a nation and nec- OCT 2-OCT 8 a wild animal intentionally by his/her dentally killed by somebody in a road acci- which results in deaths of these wild animals. Even the essary for the development but equally pose threat to the speedy vehicle, such collisions are mostly dent, he/she is then advised to get a wildlife. These roads cut through continuous forest, frag- honourable Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, while accidental but avoidable. However, a study in Ontario, small/symbolic snake be made in silver by goldsmith and featuring in the Man Vs Wild programme with Bear Grylls menting them into patches. The wild animals have to cross Canada in 1996 found many reptile killed on portions of be donated in a Nag temple after some purifying and expi- these man-made roads in search of food, mates and other have stressed on the importance of conservation of the the road where vehicle tyres do not usually pass over, atory rituals. It means that we do not intentionally hit the wild fauna and flora of the country. Therefore, it is our resources, like water and shelter. It is when, these wild which led to the inference that some drivers intentionally animals but accidentally the animal gets hurt or killed. fauna (animals) are hit by the speedy vehicles, the insects duty to preserve our natural heritage or this will be lost for- run over reptiles. To verify this hypothesis, research in In India,(PATH) 'Provide Animals safe Transit on ever and one of the reason will be our negligent driving. (moths, butterflies, scorpions etc); crawling reptiles like 2007 found that 2.7% of drivers intentionally hit reptile Highways' was initiated by Environment Conservation The author is Assistant Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) History of Railways in J&K Y R Gupta Jammu. This project will be remembered forever as it is one of the few such projects in the world history when The Railway line in Jammu region was an extension work did not stop even during the Indo-Pak war of 1971. of NWR from Suchetgarh of the Sialkot District to the A galaxy of VIPs from the Centre and the State were Jammu city. The work on this Railway line commenced present to witness this historic event when Jammu was in October 1888 and the line was declared open for traf- brought on the Railway map once again after a gap of 25 fic on 13th March, 1890. It was about 17 miles in length years. The station became pilgrim place for the rural as and was purchased by the State Government from the well as for the urban folks. It was Srinagar express (now Dharamarth Department for a sum of Rs. 11, 78,078. Jhelum express) which departed from New Delhi on This link, however, was disrupted in 1947 as a result of 1stDecember, 1972 and arrived Jammu Tawi on 2nd division of the Country. December, 1972. Om Mehta, Minister of State for Earlier in 1902, the Maharaja Sir PRATAP SINGH got Transport and Parliamentary Affairs and Mohd. Shaffi the survey done via three different routes i.e. Qureshi Dy. Minister of Railways was the Chief Guest on Abbottabad to Srinagar, Jammu to Srinagar via two dif- this train which was decorated like a bride. A memorable ferent routes through Banihal for a Narrow Gauge function was also arranged by the State Government Railway line and another survey for Electric Railway which was presided over by A. G Lone, the then Minister from Jammu to Srinagar via Banihal but the construc- for Tourism in which awards were also presented to the tion could not be started not only due to financial con- Railway men for their outstanding performance. Besides straints but also due to formal sanction of the project this train, other 3 trains that is Kashmir Train (now from Government Of India. The financial aspect could Jammu Mail),Sealdah Express and one Passenger Train have been very much met with the exploration of Coal (Jammu-Pathankot) were introduced and started run- Fields in Ladda area, a distance of 30 miles from Tikri ning from this day. The number of trains gradually where at least 2,500,000 tons coal was available. As to increased, the first being Bombay- Jammu Tawi super- why these Coal Fields were not explored even after the fast on 24th December, 1976 which was flagged off by Railway Projects were abandoned is not known.