Naidu to chair new state steering committee for Nagarjunasagar–Srisailam tigers

The Andhra Pradesh Environment, Forests, Science and Technology Department issued G.O. Ms No. 42 on Monday, 31 August 2026, constituting a State-Level Steering Committee for the Nagarjunasagar–Srisailam Tiger Reserve under Section 38U of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu is the chair. Deputy Chief Minister and Forests Minister K. Pawan Kalyan is the vice-chair. The Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) and Chief Wildlife Warden is the member-secretary.

Membership reaches across departments that usually meet only in crisis. Senior officials of Tribal Welfare, Panchayat Raj and Social Justice are included, along with the Project Tiger Nandyal Field Director. Wildlife experts Dolan N. Lakshmirani and Murthy Kanta Mahanti are named, as are two representatives of the State Tribal Council. The committee’s mandate is to oversee tiger, wildlife and prey conservation and to force inter-departmental coordination inside one of India’s largest tiger reserves.

The timing matters because the reserve has already lived through a painful 2026 chapter of tiger deaths that produced a separate five-member inquiry. Monday’s steering committee is distinct from that inquiry. One body investigates what went wrong; the other is meant to govern what happens next — habitat, prey base, tribal interface, and the everyday friction between forest protection and local livelihood departments.

Nagarjunasagar–Srisailam is not a postcard sanctuary. It spreads across difficult terrain touching Nandyal, Palnadu and Prakasam geographies, with pilgrimage, irrigation and tribal settlement pressures around the core. A statutory steering committee chaired by the chief minister is a signal that tiger governance is being pulled into the cabinet’s direct line of sight rather than left only to field directors and seasonal reviews.

Whether the committee becomes a real coordinating forum or a meeting calendar will depend on what it publishes and funds after notification. The government order itself, however, is clear enough for the public record: Naidu chairs, Pawan Kalyan vice-chairs, wildlife and tribal voices sit at the table, and Section 38U is the legal hook. This cutting does not invent tiger population counts, poaching figures, or inquiry findings that the tip does not contain. It reports the constitution of the panel and the names published with it. For tribal villages on the reserve fringe, a committee that includes Tribal Welfare and State Tribal Council voices is only useful if meeting minutes turn into road, compensation and forest-rights clarity rather than another layer of letters. For forest staff, chief-ministerial chairmanship can unlock budgets that field directors cannot. The public should watch whether the first steering meeting publishes an action list on prey base, conflict response and departmental deadlines. Notification without follow-through would leave G.O. Ms No. 42 as stationery.