Madurai: Madras High Court seeks  the state forest department's response to its request to construct solar fences and ditches to keep wild animals out of settlements.

On Friday, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court requested a report from the state forest department in response to a public interest litigation petition asking for a directive to authorities to install solar fencing and trenches near forest boundaries in Kadayam, Courtallam, and Kadayanallur to keep wild animals out of villages and safeguard crops and villagers from attacks.

In response to a petition filed by Vincent, the president of a Farmer Producer's Group in the Tirunelveli district, a bench of Justices Subramanian and Victoria Gowri issued notices to the pertinent authorities and instructed them to file their report by April 10 the next hearing.

"The main source of income for the local population in this area is agriculture. Rice, coconut, mango, banana, and sugarcane are some of their main agricultural crops. Nonetheless, there have recently been more conflicts between people and wildlife in these places. As a result of elephant, wild boar, and bear attacks, which made both people and crops susceptible, villages lost their livelihoods or were rendered permanently incapacitated. They had grown weary of being for compensation for agricultural damage and for money to repair livestock injuries "added the petitioner. The petitioner added that no action was taken despite several representations made to the relevant authorities.

The government compensates farmers for agricultural losses resulting from land acquisition, but not when the damage is caused by human-animal conflicts.  The authorities in question were given notice by a bench of justices R Subramanian and L Victoria Gowri, who also instructed them to submit a report before the next hearing on April 10.

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