Assam gets Dehing Patkai as 7th National Park, third highest in country

GUWAHATI: The Assam Government has decided in its recent cabinet meeting to declare Dehing Patkai Wildlife Sanctuary as the 7th National Park of the state today.

Assam as of now had as many as five National Park namely -- Kaziranga, Orang, Manas, Nameri and Dibru-Saikhowa.

Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has announced the up-gradation of Raimona Sanctuary to National Park on June 5.

Now, apart from these six, Assam received another National Park today which is Dehing Patkai.

With seven national parks, Assam now sits at the third position in the list of Indian states with the highest numbers of national parks.

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Madhya Pradesh is in the first position in this list with 10 national parks and with nine Andaman & Nicobar Islands is at second.

In India, a total number of 105 national parks are there spreading across 44,000 acres of land.

"These two inclusions will make a good impact on Assam tourism," asserted Forest and Environment minister Parimal Suklabaidya.

Suklabaidya added further, "Dehing Patkai was of 111 sq km earlier. We have included Burhi dihing nad Tirak river in its periphery and made it of 234.25 sq km."

Last year, the government was slammed for allegedly trying to sell Dehing-Patkai to open it for coal mining as The National Board for Wildlife’s Standing Committee discussed a proposal for the use of 98.59 hectares of land from Dehing Phatkai elephant reserve forest for a coal-mining project.

The decision has embarked a nationwide outrage and the deal stayed.

Notably, four tiger reserves of the state have received accreditation by the National Committee of Conservation Assured Tiger Standards (CATS) recently as well.

These four tiger reserves are namely – Kaziranga, Manas, Nameri and Orang tiger reserves.

Nameri received an International Award for tiger reservation as well.

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