Bhopal: The wait is over for Tourists willing to see the Cheetahs brought from Namibia and released by PM Modi in MP’s Kuno National park. The cheetahs will now be released into the wild from a large 500-hectare enclosure in late January or early February. And tourism will start in February. According to CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, all the leopards are healthy and have started hunting. To develop cheetah tourism, the government is giving training to Saharia tribal families to run homestays.
For this, they are being taught how to maintain hygiene and how to cook food for foreigners. Apart from repairs, no structural changes will be made to their homes. Training of 4 Sahariya families has been completed, and training of six more is going on. The National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) and the Ecotourism Board have selected these houses.
After the arrival of the Cheetahs, the number of tourists coming to Kuno has increased. Ahera and Peel-Bawdi used to get hardly 20-30 trains in a year, from September onwards 3-4 trains come every day. While in the last year, 1200 vehicles came from Tiktoli Gate. Tourists will also be able to book online for Kuno. There will be safaris in the morning and evening shifts. There are 3 zones in Kuno. Ahera, Peel-Bawdi and Tiktoli. Tiktoli is the area where the cheetahs live.
These days 60 guides are being taught English to prepare Kuno for foreign tourists. For the first time in the world, the intercontinental translocation of animals has happened. According to DFO Kuno Prakash Verma, cheetahs make an area of 50-100 square km as their territory. They are making preparations for tourism accordingly. Notably, on September 8 cheetahs came to India from Namibia. Of these, five are female and 3 are male. Everyone has already been shifted to the bigger enclosure.