BHOPAL, October 16 — The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) on Friday formally accorded final statutory approval establishing Ratapani Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh as India's 57th Tiger Reserve.
Encompassing a contiguous protected expanse of approximately 1,270 square kilometres across Raisen and Sehore districts in the Vindhya mountain range, the newly gazetted reserve features an 890-square-kilometre inviolate core breeding zone and a 380-square-kilometre buffer fringe. Camera trap telemetry currently documents a resident population exceeding 50 wild Royal Bengal Tigers (Panthera tigris).
Wildlife conservators emphasized that declaring Ratapani a Project Tiger sanctuary secures a pivotal dispersal corridor connecting the central Indian tiger metapopulation across the Betwa river basin, shielding apex predators from urban infrastructure fragmentation while replenishing seasonal groundwater aquifers.
The statutory architecture of the National Tiger Conservation Authority under the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972 (amended in 2006), the milestones of Project Tiger (launched in 1973), the national census methodologies (M-STrIPES digital monitoring), and Madhya Pradesh's status as India's leading 'Tiger State' (hosting 785 tigers in the 2022 census) constitute high-yield themes across UPSC Civil Services (GS-III: Environment & Biodiversity).