Tourism that isn’t tiger friendly
When you enter the Sariska Tiger Reserve, you are given a well-handed-out, but never-read laminated card of rules. It says that cars inside the reserve should not exceed the speed limit of 30 kmph. They have to confine themselves to the main road and no one can step out of the vehicles. No one can sit on the top of a vehicle either. All the rules are broken. Many of the people who come to visit Sariska go to the Pandupole temple, 22 km from the main entrance and deep in the core area. Both Sariska and Ranthambore have temples located in the heart of the reserves.
The road to Pandupole does not have speed breakers along the entire stretch. Guards sit at only two points. Result: cars speed by, horns blaring, and people sit on the roofs of vehicles and stop for a picnic or for a drink as they please. Outside the Pandupole temple, there is a new board that reads “Caution! This is re-introduced tiger area”. But this means nothing for those going to visit the temple, which is loudly advertised even by the Rajasthan Tourism Department. Pandupole temple gets about six lakh devotees every year, who all come calling in their vehicles. Worse, on two days of the week, Saturday and Tuesday, there is free entry into the park. The year that saw the tigers vanishing, 2004-5, recorded the entry of 23,238 vehicles (203,372 visitors) with an additional 4,781 vehicles trundling in during festivals.
The tourism circuit seems ruthless and powerful: another popular temple near Sariska Tiger Reserve, Talvraksh, cheekily displays a tiger head next to what is considered to be a conch blown by the Pandavas.
A WII study says that tigers do not breed when disturbed. With the breeding season on, keeping the area disturbance-free for the two reintroduced tigers should have been of utmost priority. Evidently, the Rajasthan Government did not consider this important enough. It has not even finalised ways in which people will move within the reserve. One proposal moots a community CNG vehicle run by the government, while another says a bus should be contracted to a private operator. A third proposal says that convoys of vehicles should be allowed in.
Rajasthan has not submitted the proposal, and with so many voters visiting the temple, forest staff say they have to “tread carefully on the delicate issue”.
In Ranthambore, there is even lesser urgency. Between 15 and 20 lakh people visit an ancient Ganesh temple in the core area. And tourists are on an upswing. In 1985, there were only 400 visitors per annum in other areas of the reserve. By 2005, there were 130,196.
There is a proposal to create state-run transport, but that is still in the proposal stage.

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