The Ministry of Tourism’s Dekho Apna Desh webinar featured a presentation and virtual tour of ‘Destination- Sariska Tiger reserve’.

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Sariska Tiger Reserve

• It is located in the Aravalli Hills, 35 km from Alwar, 250 km SW of Delhi and 110 km NE of Jaipur.
• The former hunting reserve of the Maharaja of Alwar, the Sariska valley is home to a variety of flora and fauna.
• The park has populations of tigers, leopards, Nilgai, Sambar, chital etc.
• The place is a paradise for bird lovers as it shelters a large population of Indian peafowl, crested serpent eagles, sand grouse, golden-backed woodpeckers, great Indian horned owls, tree pies, vultures and many others.
• It is the first reserve in the world with successfully relocated tigers. It is an important biodiversity area in the Northern Aravalli leopard and wildlife corridor.

Features of this episode

• Alwar is a city dotted with heritage buildings, Forts, tombs and palaces. Some of the important sights not to be missed are Bala Qila, Vijai Mandir Lake Palaces, Fateh Jung ki Gumbad, Moti Doongri etc.
• The sanctuary is strewn with ruins of ancient temples dating back to the 10th and 11th centuries.
• Some of the highlights are the ruins of the Kankwari Fort and the 10th-century Neelkanth temples, which have Khajuraho-like carvings as key features.
• Neelkanth Mahadeva houses the ruins of over 300 Hindu and Jain temples constructed between the 8th and 12th Centuries.
• Chand Baoli (stepwell) at Abhaneri is enormous with 3500 steep steps built by the Nikhumbha dynasty is one of the largest step-wells in the world.

About DekhoApnaDesh

• Under this, a series of webinars will showcase the diverse and remarkable history and culture of India through a documentary series on various cities.
• It will be including various monuments, cuisine, arts, dance forms, natural landscapes, festivals and many other aspects of the rich Indian civilization.
• The objective of the webinar series is to create awareness about and promote various tourism destinations of India – including the lesser-known destinations and lesser-known facets of popular destinations.
• The webinar will be available in the public domain through the Ministry’s social media handles- “Incredible India” on Instagram and Facebook.

Back2Basics: Project Tiger

• Project Tiger is a tiger conservation programme launched in April 1973 by during PM Indira Gandhi’s tenure.
• It is administered by the National Tiger Conservation Authority.
• The project aims at ensuring a viable population of Bengal tigers in their natural habitats, protecting them from extinction, and preserving areas of biological importance as a natural heritage forever represented as close as possible the diversity of ecosystems across the distribution of tigers in the country.
• The project’s task force visualized these tiger reserves as breeding nuclei, from which surplus animals would migrate to adjacent forests.
• The government has set up a Tiger Protection Force to combat poachers and funded relocation of villagers to minimize human-tiger conflicts.

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