Nearly two months after a study indicated that India has far fewer tigers than what was earlier believed, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said all the recommendations of the Tiger Task Force should be implemented at the earliest.

At a meeting to review the Tiger Task Force report, the Prime Minister took stock of the work being done on tiger conservation and asked concerned officials to expedite efforts. “The Prime Minister emphasised that all the recommendations made by the Tiger Task Force be implemented in a time-bound manner,” the Prime Minister’s media advisor Sanjaya Baru told The Indian Express.

“He also stressed that the tiger census that is being carried out be completed by the end of the year,” Baru said, referring to a study being conducted by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), which was expected to reveal the correct number of tigers in the country.

WII had come out with its provisional findings in May based on the estimated tiger population in six states, which indicated that the number of tigers in India was not likely to be more than 2,000-2,200. The last tiger census had put the number at more than 3,500.

The final findings of the WII study were expected in December. But, the Ministry of Environment and Forests on Wednesday said it would ask the WII to try and finish the study before December.

“Everyone felt that we need to get it out (census figures) as soon as possible. There has to be a clear assessment of the numbers,” said Sunita Narain, head of the Tiger Task Force.

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