127 sensitive areas prone to wildlife fatalities in focus of rlys, forest dept
NEW DELHI: Alarmed by the frequent incidents of elephants and other wildlife being hit or run over by trains, the Ministry of Railways, in coordination with the Ministry of Forest, Environment and Climate Change and other institutions, has identified 127 railway stretches passing through forest areas as sensitive to wildlife fatalities. Of these, 110 stretches fall within elephant distribution ranges, while 17 are located in two tiger range areas. An official said that a comprehensive joint survey was also conducted to assess critical railway stretches where elephant and wildlife-train collisions have been reported frequently. The 127 sensitive railway stretches 110 in elephant range areas and 17 in tiger range areas together cover 3,452.4 km of railway track. Following this identification, several measures have been adopted to prevent collisions between trains and wildlife on railway tracks. The Railways on Monday stated that works such as fencing along railway tracks passing through forest areas with frequent movement of elephants and other wildlife have been undertaken. Installation of AI-enabled devices to prevent elephants and other animals from coming close to railway tracks has also been initiated. According to a railway official, one of the innovative measures taken is the development of an AI-enabled Intrusion Detection System (IDS) to detect the presence of elephants on railway tracks using Distributed Acoustic Sensors (DAS). He told this newspaper that the IDS system is currently operational over 141 route kilometres at critical and vulnerable locations identified by the forest department, particularly under the Northeast Frontier Railway. Elaborating further, the official said that IDS works have been sanctioned for identified corridors covering a total length of 1,158 route kilometres at a total cost of `208 crore. These works cover NFR, ECOR, SR, NR, SER, NER, WR and ECR. Installation of the system is currently in progress over ECOR (349.4 route kilometres), SR (55.85 route kilometres) and NER (36 route kilometres).
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