Two herds of elephants have been rampaging standing crops of maize, paddy and vegetable plantations at Pedduru and Naniyala tribal hamlets deep inside the Koundinya wildlife sanctuary spread over Palamaner and Kuppam Assembly constituencies for the last two days.
Sub-Divisional Forest Officer (Chittoor West) Ravishankar Sharma and Forest Range Officer (Kuppam) Kalappa Naidu along with a staff are currently camping at Ramakuppam mandal headquarters, overseeing operations to drive them back into the sanctuary. The officials said 32 elephants, in two groups, are circling round the six hamlets as they are lured by standing crops.
They damaged crops in about 10 acres at Pedduru in the early hours of Tuesday. “We drove away one herd towards Karnataka forests in the morning, and are expecting that the another herd would be driven back into the Koundinya reserves or towards Karnataka,” the SDFO said.
Mr. Kalappa Naidu refuted the reports in a section of the media that the people of the tribal tandas were panic-stricken.