Lack of accessibility and clarity and red tapism are some of the lacunae in the State law
An elephant that terrorised settlements in Palakkad is caught and drugged by the administration. Photo: @saseendran_ak / Twitter The furore caused by the January 13 killing of a farmer in Kerala by a tiger has brought the issue of the need for mitigation of human-wildlife conflict in India to the forefront yet again. In a knee-jerk reaction, Kerala’s Forest Minister A K Saseendran called for culling of tigers in the state which unsurprisingly led to much debate and rancour from all sides.
According to the Kerala Forest Department’s ‘Administration Report 2020-21’, between the year 2020 and 2021, there have been 8,017 recorded instances of human-wildlife conflict in the state. One of the most obvious implications of human-wildlife conflicts is the financial loss suffered by the affected individuals.
In this regard, an important and often ignored strategy for the mitigation of harm to both humans and wildlife is the payment of adequate and timely compensation to the victims by the state. Some studies have shown that disbursal of compensation to wildlife conflict victims, when combined with other preventive measures could reduce retaliatory attacks on wildlife and help decrease intolerance towards wildlife in the affected populations.
However, no state in India currently has a comprehensive legislation that deals with the disbursal of compensation for human-wildlife conflict. Most states currently use ad hoc government orders or as in the case of Kerala, disburse compensation through ever-changing rules. However, this approach is inadequate.
In a report titled ‘The Need for a Human Wildlife Conflict Compensation Law’, published by The Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, Karnataka in collaboration with The Centre for Wildlife Studies, a set of criteria have been identified to assess the effectiveness of human-wildlife compensation policies in India.
The following shall highlight the inadequacy of the ‘Kerala Rules for Compensation to Victims of Attack by Wild Animals, 1980’ (The Kerala Compensation Rules) by assessing them against this criteria and argue for the passing of state specific human wildlife conflict compensation law.
Lack of accessibility and up to date information: The first problem with the lack of a single comprehensive wildlife conflict compensation law is the lack of accessible legal information in a single document. The Kerala Compensation Rules have been amended no less than eight times since 1980 through various government orders and are currently unavailable in a single document. This creates unnecessary confusion as to the procedure and compensation amounts and acts as a barrier to knowledge and access for victims of human-wildlife conflict.
Lack of standard criteria for calculation of compensation: The Kerala Compensation Rules currently provide that for instances of loss of cattle, crops and property damage, the state shall pay 100 per cent of the loss assessed up to a maximum of Rs 75,000. However, the rules do not mention any objective criteria for the assessment of these damages, leaving it up to the investigating officer to assess them as per subjective criteria.
For instance, there is no criteria for assessing cattle depredation damages in terms of the type of animal, its age, breed or whether it is milk giving or not. This lack of objective criteria means that forest officers have excessive discretion when it comes to assessing compensation which potentially leads to varying compensation pay outs for victims with similar losses.
Bureaucratic hurdles: The current process for the investigation and payment of compensation claims is unnecessarily convoluted. As per Rule 4, the victims must first address the compensation application to one of three different officers including the jurisdictional Divisional Forest Officer / the Game Warden / the Wildlife Preservation Officer.
They must then file it with the Forest Range Officer / the Assistant Wildlife Preservation Office, who shall then forward it to any of the three different jurisdictional officers mentioned above.
One of these three officers is to then conduct the investigation and forward the application with their recommendations to the jurisdictional Divisional Forest Officer / Game Warden / Wildlife Preservation Officer concerned.
One of these officers, after conducting further enquiry as deemed necessary, is to then pass a compensation order.
This three-tier system of compensation is unnecessarily complicated, amounts to excessive delegation and leads to inordinate delays in the processing of claims. It acts as a significant bureaucratic hurdle to those who have a right to seek compensation from the state. It is imperative therefore that this system be streamlined for speedier disbursal of compensation applications.
Lack of time frames for verification of claims and grievance redressal: Currently, while Rule 4 states that the responsible sanctioning officer must pass a compensation order within 15 days of receiving the forwarded compensation application, it does not provide interim timelines for forwarding and investigation of claims from one stage to the other, thereby causing unwarranted delay in the payment of compensation.
As per available data, there are more than 8,231 compensation claims that are still pending with the Kerala Forest Department as of 2023. This delay in payment of compensation is a travesty of justice, the implications of which are only compounded when one considers that the socio-economic conditions of those most affected by such conflict are already dire.
Similarly when it comes to grievance redressal, while the rules provide that an appeal must be filed within 30 days of receipt of the compensation order by the victim, they do not provide a similar timeline for the completion of the appeal process by the state. This leads to further delays in compensation payments.
It is evident from the above analysis that the current mechanism of disbursal of compensation for human-wildlife conflict in Kerala is riddled with ad hocism, inefficiency and bureaucratic hurdles. It is therefore recommended that the Kerala government pass a comprehensive legislation dealing with human-wildlife conflict compensation in the state, that addresses the above highlighted lacunae.
The report ‘The Need for a Human Wildlife Conflict Compensation Law’ highlights these issues and provides a legislative template for human-wildlife conflict compensation in India.
While the report mainly bases its findings on the analysis of Karnataka’s government orders dealing with human-wildlife conflict compensation, the similarity between state compensation policies in India means that its recommendations apply universally.
Akhileshwari Reddy is a Senior Resident Fellow at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, Karnataka
Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth
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