Mangaldai businessman offers banana trunks to wild elephants

TANGLA: In a great humanitarian gesture to the elephants which very often raid villages in search of food and destroy crops and kill humans, Mangaldai based businessman Pankaj Kumar Sarma along with his family members voluntarily offered three trucks of banana trunks to herds of wild elephants in Nonai range of Khalingduar Reserve Forest on Saturday.

Ranger of Nonai Range, Satya Boro and the forest staff, accompanied by Pankaj Kumar Sarma, visited the spots used as shelters by wild elephants and offered the banana trunks. Talking to this correspondent, Sarma said that taking note of the rising incidents of man-elephant conflict in Udalguri district, the thought of offering the banana trunks as fodder struck his mind and he expressed happiness at the cooperation he received from the forest department. He further exhorted the forest department and State Government to clear the encroached land of the natural elephant corridor which blocks the age-old pathways used by the herds. He also appealed to the forest department to plant trees like banana and jackfruit in the forests, which in the long run would act as fodder for wild elephants.

The expenditure for the banana trunks, including their transportation, was shared by Pankaj Kumar Sarma’s brother and retired forest officer, Pabitra Kumar Sarma; former top official of Williamson Magor Tea Company, Dulal Sarma; businessman Himanjan Sarma; and Dhansiri Forest Division DFO Madhurya Kumar Sarma.

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