Raipur, Sep 9 (IANS): Chhattisgarh has witnessed a record 7,028 cases of attacks by wild elephants -- on houses, standing crops and forest residents -- in the first seven months of this year, the state assembly was informed Friday.
Wild elephants killed 11 people between January and July and injured five, demolished 610 houses while there were 6,402 cases registered of damage to crops, forest minister Vikram Usendi said in a written reply.
He said the government was doing fencing work in man-elephant conflict areas to keep wild jumbos away from residential pockets.
Usendi said the process of setting up elephant reserves in the problem-hit districts of Surguja and Jashpur districts were also under-implementation.
He told the assembly last week in reply to a question that some 103 wild jumbos were roaming in the state mainly in the northern region comprising Surguja, Jashpur, Raigarh, Korba and Korea districts.