• President of India inaugurates Gaj Utsav at Kaziranga National Park in Assam to mark 30th anniversary of Project Elephant (PE).
• Project Elephant was launched by Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) in 1992 as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme.
• Objective: To protect elephants, their habitat & corridors; address issues of man-animal conflict; and Welfare of captive elephant.
• MoEF&CC provides financial and technical support to major elephant range states in country through Project Elephant.

About Asian Elephant (Elephas Maximas Indicus)

• Found in central and southern Western Ghats, North East India, eastern India and northern India and in some parts of southern peninsular India.
• The Asian elephant is the largest land mammal on the Asian continent.
• Highly intelligent with strong family bonds;
• They have longest gestation period of all mammals (18 to 22 months);
• As per Elephant Census, 2017, Karnataka has highest number of elephants, followed by Assam and Kerala.
• Protection status
  • IUCN- endangered
  • Appendix I of CITES
  • Included in Schedule I and IV of WPA 1972

Other info

• Recently Terai Elephant Reserve in Utter Pradesh became 33rd India’s ER.