The State of West Bengal in India and our neighbouring country Bangladesh share between them the largest Mangrove forest in the world. This region is the delta of river Hoogly in India and river Padma and Meghna in Bangladesh. The entire region is dotted with hundreds islands and criss crossed by scores of river tributaries. The area is covered by dense mangrove forest and very rich in bio diversity. It is home to numbers of species of wild animals and birds. This is also home to the world famous Royal Bengal Tiger. In India it is called Sundarban tiger reserve and declared as national forest. West Bengal is a densely populated state and this reserve forest is surrounded by villages whose people make a living by agriculture or by fishing in the rivers.

As forest area is decreasing rapidly because of pressure of human habitation and food becomes scarce for tigers in the forest, sometimes these big animals stray into the locality . This leads to the death of either human being or of the tiger. People are also getting killed in tiger attack while entering deep forest for collecting wood , honey and other forest produce. In a nut shell, confrontation between tiger and human is very common in this area and is very frequent. In this battle both are some time victim and sometime killer. As per news paper report there are some villages adjacent to Sundarbans , where more than 2000 widows of tiger victims live.

Govt. has a policy in place for compensating these widows by giving them financial help. However it has been reported that though enough fund is available , it can not be disbursed among widows of victims because of a strange rule. As per rule, a documentary evidence has to be submitted along with the application for compensation. Babus of concerned govt. department have decided that a photograph showing that tiger is killing the victim is required to be submitted with application for compensation. Is this not height of Babudom? There must be a limit of insensitivity. This is one example of how our systems are being run and how various welfare schemes are managed. We should not believe everything blindly while carrying out our duty but at the same time we should not allow lack of faith to destroy the very purpose of our being there.