The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed Tangedco to pay a compensation of ₹75 lakh to the Forest Department over an electrocution incident in February 2020 in which an elephant, four boars and other animals and reptiles died. The compensation is to be paid to the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF), Tamil Nadu, within three months.
The NGT directed the PCCF and the Chief Wildlife Warden (CWW) to utilise the amount for implementing measures to avoid human-animal conflict, including the electrocution of wild animals on coming into contact with power lines in or near the forest area, where wild animal passage is anticipated.
The Tribunal, which had taken suo motu cognisance of a media report about the electrocution incident in the Chungam Forest Division in the Cherambadi forest area at Pandalur in the Nilgiris district, in which a male wild elephant, four wild boars, a common mongoose, a striped necked mongoose, three cobras and a crow were killed, said it held Tangedco responsible for their deaths, applying the principles of “strict liability” and res ipsa loquitur.
