Rajahmundry, Oct. 14: The Centre is planning to develop the Papikonda wildlife sanctuary into a national park. The sanctuary is around 591 sq kms area and is spread over in East Godavari, West Godavari and Khammam districts. The forest authorities have recently carried out a survey to identify the thick forest areas adjoining the sanctuary limits and identified nearly 283 sq km. The authorities are now on the look out for some more forest areas to be included in the sanctuary limits in order to get nearly 1,000 sq km, a mandatory for being declared as a national park. The sanctuary has tigers, panthers, wild boars, wild dogs, hyenas, jackals, slothbears, spotted deer, four-horned antelope, sambar, gaur and other animals. As many as 12 varieties termininalia, lagerstromia and some varieties of bamboo are also found. Sources said it is estimated that nearly 187.29 hectares of reserve forest area is likely to be submerged with water from Godavari river soon after the completion of the Indira Sagar Polavaram project. The authorities have identified 17 spots in three districts including Tunnuru, Manturu, Konda Modalu, Singanapalli, Geddapalli, Siriwaka, Papikonda and Rekhapalli. These areas are expected to be submerged with the river water. The Godavari river which flows within the sanctuary limits comes upto 1,553 hectares. As many as 21 villages, which are located in the sanctuary limits, are to be relocated under relief package. Three villages including Balusugudem in East Godavari and Jeedigumma and Pothamamidia of Khamma districts have already been declared as depopulated villages.