Hyderabad:Nearly every bulb that lights up homes in villages inside the Kawal tiger reserve in Telangana, and in nearly the entire tiger corridor forests that the big cats use to enter Telangana from Maharashtra, glow thanks to illegally laid power lines and electricity infrastructure.
Of the 878.781-km of electricity lines that run through the Kawal tiger circle – which includes the reserve — and reserve forests that form the corridor forest patches, only 22.21 km have the required permissions under the Forest Conservation Act, a mandatory requirement for laying power lines in forests.
According to forest department sources, at least 79 villages in the Kawal tiger circle area have a history of using illegally hooked electric wire snares for hunting wildlife between 2019 and 2024. The Kawal tiger reserve has 39 notified villages inside its core area, and 200 in its buffer zone, while around another 200 illegal habitations exist in the reserve and its surrounding reserve forest areas, the sources said. And nearly all of them receive electricity via power lines laid without the required forest permissions.
“The fear now, after the Bhadradri Kothagudem district incident in which a forest beat officer died because of an electrified snare, something similar may happen here too. There is no option but to go on foot patrols inside the forest, and the risk has now been proved as extreme during night patrols,” a senior forest department official said.
Of the illegal power lines that stretch for 550.794 km inside the reserve, officials said 59.270 km fall under the category of highly vulnerable to illegal tapping and wildlife hunting. And of the 227.987 km of power lines that run through the corridor forest areas – which are considered to be the most vulnerable for poaching — data with the forest department shows that a third of this length – 60.11km – are considered highly vulnerable, while 44.864km are considered to be in the medium vulnerable category with the rest, 123.013 km falling in the low probability category.
“Whether it is for poaching of wildlife or not, the fact is all human deaths on account of people coming to contact with illegally laid electrified lines or snares, are a result of poaching attempts,” the official said.
While officials said more than 70 people have died in these forest areas since 2014 from accidentally coming into contact with life electric snares placed to poach wild animals, several instances of wildlife being killed in this manner too have been discovered. The most notable one among such incidents was the death of a tiger in May 2025 as a result of a nearly half a kilometre long electrified wire laid inside the forest in Penchikalpet range of the forest.
Kawal’s ‘power’ problems
Power lines in Kawal tiger circle: 878.781 km
Lines with permissions under forest rules: 22.21 km
Lines without permissions: 856.871 km
Highly vulnerable power lines for poaching inside tiger reserve: 59.27 km
Tiger corridor forests
Total power lines length: 123.013 km
Highly vulnerable for poaching: 60.11 km
Medium vulnerability for poaching: 44.864 km
Low vulnerability for poaching: 123.013 km
District wise power lines in Kawal tiger circle
Mancherial: 204.279 km
KB Asifabad: 456.377 km
Nirmal: 134.545 km
Adilabad: 83.579 km
2019 Telangana HC judgement
Forest, police, power, excise departments must ensure all unauthorised power lines inside Kawal core and buffer area are immediately dismantled.
Power distribution company must ensure legally supplied power is used only for authorised purposes.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
