In Palamu Tiger Reserve, conservation was not simply about protecting forests. It was about changing the very landscape in which forests, people, roads, railways and wildlife had been forced to coexist for decades.
When IFS Kumar Ashish, 2012-batch officer, took charge as Deputy Director of Palamu Tiger Reserve in 2019, he found a reserve where conservation faced deep structural challenges. The core area was only about 414 sq km, 35 villages eventually came to lie within it, lakhs of cattle exerted pressure on the forest, and crucial wildlife corridors were sliced by a railway line and State Highway-9.
The warning could hardly have been starker: the 2018 Tiger Census recorded zero tigers in PTR.
Ashish’s response was not to focus on one problem at a time but to rethink the reserve’s entire conservation architecture.
“Effective and long-term conservation would not be possible without relocating villages from the core area. But relocation could not be treated merely as displacement. It had to improve living conditions, livelihoods, and the future prospects of the children of these families,” he shared in an exclusive interview with Indian Masterminds.
That philosophy would shape one of Jharkhand’s most significant conservation interventions.
Expanding the Core, Expanding the Possibility
Ashish noticed that ecologically important, contiguous forests in the central portion of PTR were outside the notified core area.
He proposed re-determining and expanding the core from 414 sq km to 545 sq km. The proposal was approved and formally notified, bringing these critical forest stretches into the core and strengthening ecological continuity.
But the change also brought 27 buffer-zone villages into the core, joining the eight villages already there. The total rose to 35 villages. That could have triggered serious social resistance.
Instead, the Forest Department held continuous dialogues with villagers, explaining the reasons behind the change and addressing their concerns. The process was carried out peacefully, through consent and sustained engagement.
All 35 villages are now eligible for relocation, and relocation activities have begun in most of them.
The First Village Relocation Model in Jharkhand
For nearly 50 years, no village had been relocated from PTR’s core area.
By 2018, the consequences were evident. A growing human population and lakhs of cattle were putting immense pressure on the habitat, while the Budha Pahad region brought another layer of difficulty: Naxalite activity, intimidation and security threats.
Ashish faced public resistance, social misconceptions and administrative hurdles. Jharkhand also had no previous practical model for relocating villages from a tiger reserve core.
The Forest Clearance proposal remained pending at the Medininagar DFO office for nearly 1.5 years. When Ashish additionally took charge as CF Medininagar, he worked with the territorial wing to establish the necessity of relocation and push the clearance process forward.
He also had to bring the district administration on board.
“The biggest challenge was not simply shifting people from one place to another. It was building confidence that conservation would not come at the cost of their dignity, security or future. Continuous dialogue and sensitivity towards tribal concerns were essential,” he shared.
The approach began producing results. Two villages have been fully relocated, 20 have agreed to relocation and the process is underway. NTCA approval has been secured for eight villages, while discussions continue with the remaining settlements.
The social atmosphere has also changed. Fear and mistrust have gradually given way to confidence, with villagers from other areas now voluntarily approaching the Forest Department.
Moving a Century-Old Railway Line
The next obstacle was steel. A railway line built in 1922, originally for timber transportation and later heavily used for coal movement, ran straight through the core area. Even after PTR was notified in 1973, trains continued to pass through it, with more than 200 trains a day.
Wildlife paid the price. Records showed deaths of leopards, elephants and Indian gaurs in train accidents. With trains passing roughly every ten minutes, wildlife movement was severely restricted.
When a third railway line was proposed, Ashish pushed for something more radical than underpasses and overpasses: move the railway line itself outside the core area.
The proposal reached the Railway Board. Technical and operational objections followed, but joint examinations with railway engineers helped identify workable alternatives.
On 13 January 2020, senior officials of the Railway Board and MoEFCC met and decided to undertake a detailed technical and feasibility survey. After nearly three years of sustained coordination and follow-up, the Railway Board approved removing the century-old line from the core and constructing a new line outside the reserve.
Tendering has been completed, with construction expected to begin shortly.
The move also offers Indian Railways an operational advantage, since trains currently face speed restrictions inside the core.
Taking the Highway Out Too
The railway is not the only infrastructure cutting through PTR. State Highway-9 divides the reserve almost north to south, carrying heavy traffic through the day and night and increasing the risk of wildlife collisions.
In 2020, Ashish proposed shifting an approximately 11-km stretch outside the core area. The proposal moved from the District-Level Committee to the Road Construction Department and eventually received the Chief Minister’s approval. When progress stalled, the Chief Secretary intervened. A site inspection followed, and a DPR worth approximately ₹65 crore was prepared.
Technical sanction has been obtained and the proposal is now awaiting Cabinet approval. Once constructed, the new alignment is expected to reduce human interference and restore safer wildlife movement through the core.
When Conservation Began at a Shrine
Perhaps Ashish’s most striking intervention did not involve a government order, a road or a railway. It involved belief.
Enforcement alone had not been enough to stop hunting in the region. So the Forest Department connected conservation with the local faith in Van Devi, the forest deity.
Villagers were repeatedly told that protecting the forest and wildlife was itself an act of worship—and hunting contradicted that belief. The message began changing behaviour.
Villagers from more than 20 villages organised an eight-day Wildlife Week, inviting the Forest Department as guests.
Then came an extraordinary gesture: villagers voluntarily surrendered 23 country-made firearms, eight hunting nets and several slingshots at the Van Devi shrine.
“Conservation becomes stronger when people see themselves as protectors of the forest rather than outsiders to the conservation process. Our effort was to connect wildlife protection with a belief system that communities already valued,” he told Indian Masterminds.
Rebuilding a Reserve, One Decision at a Time
From expanding the core area to relocating villages, from moving a century-old railway line to proposing a new highway alignment, and from enforcement to culturally rooted behavioural change, Kumar Ashish’s work at Palamu has addressed conservation from multiple fronts.
The objective is ultimately simple: more connected habitat, safer wildlife movement, reduced human pressure and a future in which tigers can return to a forest that is once again capable of sustaining them.
And in Palamu, that future is no longer being left to chance. It is being planned: forest, village, railway, highway and community together.
