Hyderabad: The Telangana government safari relaunched new initiatives including tours to see tigers in the Amrabad Tiger Reserve here. Visitors can book their slots from January 26. Eight new safari vehicles were also launched a day earlier as part of their ‘tiger stay package’.
Since the establishment of this tourist package, almost around 3,000 visitors have availed it. Earlier the tiger stay packages launched by Amrabad Tiger Reserve authorities had only 10 cottages but to ensure that the stay is comfortable and pleasant the Forest department constructed six new cottages, including a mud house and a tree house.
At present forest safari rides are being conducted on the Farhabad and Gundam routes in the Amrabad Tiger Reserve. However, the Telangana Forest department now plans to extend its route from Umamaheshwaram to Rushula Cheruvu and also at Domalpenta.
Forest Minister A Indrakaran Reddy on Friday launched eight new safari vehicles to accommodate new visitors in the new routes. He also flagged the eco-tourism project consisting of six new cottages at Mannanur
The minister also released a coffee table book comprising images of tigers captured in camera traps in ATR.
Speaking on this occasion he said, “The Telangana government is boosting up its responsibility towards eco-tourism in the state Under this initiative, more eco-tourism projects would be developed near forest areas and tiger reserves.”.
According to the Telangana government, as per the All-India Census of Tiger-2018, the tiger population was estimated to be 12 in Amrabad as against a total of 26 in the entire Telangana. These tigers are found mostly in the Farhabad plateau of Amrabad division.
Tigers move freely from the Amrabad Tiger Reserve to NSTR (Nagarjuna Sagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve) and vice versa, forming a large landscape, with connectivity up to Sheshachalam Hills.
In the recent AITE-2022, an approximate number of 21 tigers are recorded in Phase-III monitoring through camera traps.
