Guarding captive elephants: Gajah Suchana app, Captive Elephant (Transfer or Transport) Rules, 2024 and Supreme Court-linked committee
PIB highlights the Gajah Suchana app, Captive Elephant (Transfer or Transport) Rules, 2024, and a High-Powered Committee linked to a Supreme Court order (March 3, 2023) to curb illegal movement of captive elephants through DNA-based monitoring.
GS3GS2GS4EssayPIBGS3Elephant conservation and wildlife governanceWildlife (Protection) Act, 1972Captive Elephant (Transfer or Transport) Rules, 2024
What happened: new safeguards for captive elephant monitoring and transfer
The Government of India strengthened safeguards against illegal trade and movement of captive elephants by combining (1) science-based identity verification and (2) rule-based control of interstate transfers. The Government’s stated aim is to curb illegal transfer and improve evidence quality in legal proceedings.
The main components described in the PIB backgrounder are:
Gajah Suchana mobile application (DNA-based monitoring)
The Government launched and uses the Gajah Suchana mobile application to maintain a national genetic database. The database is described as containing:
DNA profiles of every registered captive elephant morphological characteristics of every registered captive elephant ownership details of every registered captive elephant