Ranthambore tiger surveillance goes dark as 11 of 12 cameras conk out

JAIPUR: The high-tech surveillance system installed to track big cats and curb poaching in Ranthambore Tiger Reserve has virtually collapsed, with only one of the 12 cameras still functional. Installed under the Wildlife Surveillance and Anti-Poaching System (WS&APS), the network was designed to cover nearly 942 sq km, around 71% of the reserve.

"Eleven cameras are lying defunct due to technical glitches. Despite repeated letters from the forest department to the department of information technology (DoIT), issues remain unresolved. The system was designed to provide round-the-clock monitoring of sensitive areas, but it has fallen short of its objectives due to outdated technology and insufficient maintenance of the cameras," a senior official said.

Commissioned in 2017-18 at an estimated cost of nearly Rs 65 crore, the WS&APS was intended to track tigers and prevent illegal activities such as mining, encroachments and disappearance of wildlife.

Officials said the system has become largely redundant. Unlike modern AI-enabled surveillance that can automatically detect movement and send real-time alerts, the PTZ (pan, tilt, and zoom) cameras at Ranthambore require continuous human monitoring, limiting their effectiveness. The project was ambitious in design. Each of the 12 towers, ranging from 30 to 45m in height, was meant to host five cameras with a monitoring radius of up to 5km. Drones were procured as part of the system but, according to forest officials, they were never deployed. In some locations, cameras have been inactive for over two years.

Over the past three years (between June 2022 and May 2024), five tigers - T79, T131, T138, T139 and T2401 - went missing under suspicious circumstances. Activist Tapeshwar Singh Bhati said, "This is an example of how govt wastes public money and forgets. Now they'll declare it redundant and seek new technology."