Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Mar 27: Dr Karan Singh, former Member Parliament has emphasized on knowing the facts behind the success story of Project Tiger, which was envisaged after days of research and sheer hard work and finally launched on April 1, 1973.
In a statement issued here today, the former Member Parliament said very few people now recall the genesis of this project in which he played a crucial role. “In the late 1960s when I was in her Cabinet, Indira Gandhi asked me to take over Chairmanship of the Indian Board for Wild Life. The first meeting was simply introductory, but in the second meeting, I realised to my astonishment that till then it was the lion that was our National Animal, based obviously on the Ashoka Lions in our national symbol. The lion is found only in one corner of India whereas the tiger stretches all the way from Himachal Pradesh to Kerala and from Gujarat to Meghalaya. We, therefore, passed a Resolution in our meeting requesting the Government of India to change the national animal from the lion to the tiger,” he recalled.
“I took the proposal to Indira ji who got it through the Cabinet and made the necessary amendments. In this way I was responsible for the tiger becoming our National Animal,” he added.
The former Member Parliament said, “Immediately thereafter we set up Project Tiger with the Prime Minister as Chairman and myself as Vice-Chairman, and I selected an excellent Forest Officer from Rajasthan K.S Shankhala as the first Project Director. We started with 9 tiger reserves, and I had the privilege to inaugurate Project Tiger in the Corbet National Park on first of April 1973. According to Dr Karan Singh, he mentioned these facts simply so that when the articles are written they should, in all fairness, mention these interesting facts which are not known to the general public.”
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