The Kalagarh Training Camp

COURSE CONTENT DESCRIPTION

Each module was divided into three days. Participants arrived on the evening preceding the first day of the workshop and were given a short orientation.

DAY 1

Day 1 began with a 2km run and excercises before breakfast. The participants registered themselves at 9a.m. This was followed by a short evaluation of the participants knowledge levels so that the course could be tailored to their requirements. The first session began at 9:30. This gave them a brief introduction to the wildlife of Uttar Pradesh, and the problems they faced.

At 10.00 a.m. the first legal session was taken jointly by the WTI lawyer, Sudhir Misra along with the Director of the Corbett Wildlife Training Centre, Mr. Samir Sinha. In Mr. Sinha's absence Aniruddha Mookerjee combined with Mr. Misra to take this session.

The first legal session provided an overview of Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 and its various sections, and clauses relevant to the field staff. The session provided an extremely user friendly and practical outlook to the Act and helped the participants understand how they could use the law in the field. The session was interspersed with practical illustrations from real life cases. Along with this hypothetical situations were created so that the session did not become boring. The style was interactive and forced the participants to react. The course material for the session was written in Hindi by Mr. Sinha, who took active interest in the proceedings.

This was followed by a post lunch practical session. To begin with, participants were instructed in the correct way of writing complaints, seizure reports and other court papers. Next, hypothetical problems were given to all the participants, and they were required to create a complete case report, including the paper work involved. To make this exercise meaningful and competitive, a cash prize of Rs.300 was announced for the best answer.

The group was next divided into four smaller groups and each given a specific problem relating to different points of law. Each group was given time to evolve the best solution and present it to the rest. The session was then thrown open to the house for questions and criticism. Each group was expected to defend its approach. The best group was also awarded a cash prize. Both these sessions were truly competitive and sometimes went on till 6:30p.m. The participants were reticent to begin with, but soon warmed up to the spirit of this exercise.

This was followed by a break, a film show and then dinner.

DAY 2

Day 2 began with a lecture on the basic tenets of patrolling, including preparation, do's and dont's, what to look for, and report writing. The participants were then given kits which included:

1. Rucksack
2. Torch
3. Knife
4. Raincoat
5. Jackets
6. Sleeping Bags
7. Ground Sheet
8. Water Bottle

The participants were thendivided into three groups for patrolling. and invited to volunteer for the toughest assignment.

First, the fittest among these were divided into two groups and sent on the two most difficult routes chosen for the day. The routes were designed by Brijendra Singh, who is very familiar with the park. The third group, which comprised of older and unfit candidates, was given an easy route. Most of the difficult patrolling was done in Sonanadi Sanctuary, where the groups were dropped at a point by boat and collected at another point by the same boat. The groups usually left by 10:30 a.m. and returned around 9:00p.m. Leaders of all three groups were expected to give detailed reports of the patrolling, based on instructions given in the morning.

DAY 3

The participants assembled by 7:30a.m and by 8:00am left for Kotdwar to the Garhwal Rifles training centre. An army instructor provided basic arms handling and weapons care training with the forest department's 12 bore guns and .315 rifles. Each participant fired the five rounds with the army's SLR rifles.

The training ended with this session and the participants returned to their respective ranges.

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