By Sundeep Pouranik Raipur, April 8 : Despite spending crores of rupees in the last few years in Chhattisgarh -- the country's most densely forested state, increasing the number of tigers remains a challenge. There are three tiger reserves in the state -- Indravati National Park and Tiger Reserve, Achanakmar, and Udanti Sitanadi. These reserves are spread over an area of over 5,500 square km. In 2014, there were 46 tigers in the state, but in the census of 2018, the number came down to 19. Government figures testify that Rs 183 crore were spent in the three tiger reserves in a period of three years. This amount was spent on the conservation of tigers, an increase in forests to develop better facilities for them and increasing the number of vegetarian animals. The figures provided by the government show that Rs 183 crore were spent in the last three years of the Congress-led government, while Rs 229 crore was spent during the four years of the previous BJP government, despite that the number of tigers had decreased. On average, at least Rs 5 crore per month is being spent on tiger reserves in the state. In other tiger reserves of the country, on average, Rs 1 crore is spent every year on one tiger. Two of these three tiger reserves in the state, Indravati and Udanti Sitanadi, are in areas where Maoists have influence. Prathamesh Mishra, an environmentalist, says that the lack of privacy in forests is the reason why there is no increase in the number of tigers in the state. Not only this, the movement of people in the forests in the name of tourism is increasing a lot, apart from this, the growing population in the forested areas is also becoming a major reason for decreasing number of tigers in the state. "Today, there is an urgent need for strict measures. Steps should be taken to relocate the people living in core areas of tiger reserves, and instead of promoting tourism more, privacy should be provided to tigers, if this does not happen, then this number may decrease further," he asserts. /IANS