After spending Rs 101.6 crore on village relocation, the Ranthambore tiger reserve has still not been able to create inviolate space for the tigers. While three villages have been totally shifted, 17 are still eating into the tiger space besides the 44 villages in Kailadevi that forms part of the critical tiger habitat that had to be relocated. While some villagers, after taking the compensation of Rs 10 lakh, have returned to the forest, those left behind have encroached on the vacant lands. And for the past one year, there has been no work on relocation in the tiger reserve. In an attempt to create space for the tigers, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) plans to relocate 65,000 families from all of India’s 42 tiger reserves in the near future. The Ranthambore tiger reserve is split in two equal-sized divisions. One is the Ranthambore division, where at present the tiger population is generally seen, while the other is Kailadevi, which currently has no resident tigers. The reason is biotic pressure on the habitat caused by the high density of human population as there are 44 villages and over 12,000 families in this part of the reserve. Five of the 10 villages scheduled for relocation in the first phase—Hindwar, Khatuli, Mundrahedi, Bhid and Kalibhat had 1,831 families. While Hindwar and Kalibhat were a failure in relocation, only Indala, Padra and Machanki in Kailadevi were totally shifted while Mundrahedi was not touched. Bhid still has nearly 30 families left in the forest and Khatuli about six. Machanki, however, was a village of Bairwas who work as labourers and were anyway happier with the compensation with a life outside the reserve. According to Dharmendra Khandal, conservation biologist with Tiger Watch, “Relocation in Ranthambore was done in two phases. Ranthambore forest officials had initially selected the large and less ecologically significant village of Hindwad for transfer. They transposed 375 landless or small land-holding families and got hardly 3 sq km of patchy habitat for tigers, while nearly 200 medium and big landholder families still remained in the village. To control and protect these empty patches was a big challenge for the forest department. This was an unwise beginning. The transfers of Hindwar and Mundraheri have been a challenge for the department. Initially, the department was haphazardly selecting any family from any of the 44 villages who were ready to leave the area. However,after the bad experience of the Hindwad relocation, the department drafted a priority list of villages to be relocated. In phase two, the forest department selected eight villages and 875 families were relocated. This was a major plus for the tiger habitat as it gave them 50-60 sq km of inviolate habitat, he said.