India marked 52 years of Project Tiger on April 1, 2025. On April 1, 1973, that this conservation programme to save the then-vanishing population of the Bengal tiger in India was launched.

National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has approved, feb 2023, to Odisha’s Debrigarh Wildlife Sanctuary as a tiger reserve (TR). It is now for the government to officially issue a notification to this effect. Debrigarh will be the third tiger reserve of the state.

In Oct 2021, NTCA   approved Chhattisgarh’s Tamor Pingla Wildlife Sanctuary and the Guru Ghasidas National Park as a Tiger Reserve.

The new Reserve, located in the state’s north, borders Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh. This will be Chhattisgarh’s fourth Tiger Reserve after the Udanti-Sitanadi, Achanakmar, and Indravati Reserves.

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PROJECT TIGER

The All India Tiger Estimation 2018 survey has entered the Guinness World Record. For being the world’s largest camera trap wildlife survey.

India has 2,967 tigers, a third more than in 2014. According to results of a tiger census made public on July 29,2019. Madhya Pradesh saw the highest number of tigers at 526, closely followed by Karnataka (524) and Uttarakhand (442).

• Corbett Tiger Reserve in Uttarakhand has the highest number of 231 big cats in the country
• Nagarhole and Bandipore reserves in Karnataka have 127 and 126 tigers.
• No tigers left in Mizoram’s Dampa, West Bengal’s Buxa and Jharkhand’s Palamau reserves

                 Traditionally eight sub-species of tigers recognized, out of which three are extinct. The Indian sub-species is Panthera tigris ; Bengal tiger.

                  The tiger is the largest member of the  (cat) family. Tigers are terminal consumers in the ecological food pyramid. Their conservation results in the conservation of all trophic levels in an ecosystem.

                Project Tiger a Centrally Sponsored Scheme of the Government of India. It launched on the 1st of April, 1973 for in-situ conservation of wild tigers in designated tiger reserves. Project Tiger implemented in the States in collaboration with the respective State Governments.  The challenges include:

protection against poaching, fragmentation of habitat, securing inviolate space for tiger to facilitate its social dynamics. Addressing tiger-human interface, restoration of corridors and eliciting public support of local people by providing ecologically sustainable options.

India is home to an estimated 3,681 tigers (range 3167-3925), as per the last population estimation released in 2022-23

Tiger being an ecologically significant species. They are the are the apex predators. They help in  maintaining ecological balance by controlling the prey population and protecting the ecosystem from overgrazing of primary producers. Tigers adopted as the national animal of India in 1973.

Grey areas like  to prevent human- wildlife conflict, poaching, disease prevention, shrinking habitat, depletion of prey  and sustainable infrastructural development need utmost attention.

List of Tiger Reserves Core