Jorhat, March 1: The Rajiv Gandhi Orang National Park, the smallest national park in Assam, has been declared a tiger reserve. Assam now has four tiger reserves, the other three being Manas, Kaziranga and Nameri.

India has 49 tiger reserves.

A notification issued by the state government a few days back stated that in view of the approval accorded by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), the governor of Assam, in exercise of the powers conferred under Section 38V(1) of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, is pleased to declare Orang a tiger reserve.

The development will ensure that the park gets the much-deserved additional incentives in the form of project allowance and other welfare measures for monitoring of tigers and their prey more effectively and independently for a long-term viability of the species.

Twenty-four tigers, including four cubs, were found at Orang National Park during a camera-trap census conducted in 2013.

The State Board for Wildlife, Assam, had approved the proposal in 2014 and moved the NTCA to declare Orang a tiger reserve in 2015.

The 79.28 square km national park, spread over Darrang and Sonitpur districts, falls under Mangaldai wildlife division.

The tiger population of Orang has been facing the biggest threat from retaliatory killings by fringe villagers.

In the past 10 years, at least 13 tigers had been poisoned to death to avenge cattle depredation by tigers.

An NTCA report titled Status of Tigers, Co-predators and Prey in India, 2010, had underscored the significance of Orang-Kaziranga tiger corridor, stating that the Kaziranga tiger population is contiguous with that of the Orang which is connected through island systems of the Brahmaputra.

This is the single largest population in this landscape consisting of nearly 125 tigers.

Thus, the report had advocated connecting of the "stepping stones" between Orang and Kaziranga as a part of a long-term tiger conservation strategy.

"If Orang is notified as a tiger reserve, the Brahmaputra riverine tiger corridor between Orang and Kaziranga through Laokhowa-Burhachapori wildlife sanctuaries can be effectively secured by notifying it as the buffer of the proposed Orang tiger reserve," the report stated.

"This is a very good news for Orang. It will ensure that its boundaries are completely secure now through installation of solar-powered fence and high towers to avoid illegal cattle grazing in the park area as well as straying of tigers and consequent retaliatory killings," Sushil Kumar Daila, a conservator of forest, Mangaldai wildlife division, told this correspondent.

He said other major species of national park such as rhino, hog deer, wild buffalo, river dolphin, wild pig and elephant would be conserved in a much better way in a tiger reserve owing to strengthening of the protection measures and improvement of habitat.