Tiger tracks near Polavaram tunnels leave migrant labourers on edge

Tiger movement near the Polavaram project works created panic among labourers on 1 September 2026, according to forest officials tracking the animal across Eluru, East Godavari and adjoining belts. Movements were recorded at Devaragondi village and near the P. Regulator of the Polavaram project over the previous two days, while trackers also pointed to hillocks near Muttappakota, Itukalakota and other tribal habitations.

Workers, site officers and staff engaged at the twin tunnels and the P. Regulator said they were scared to attend duties after the sightings and kills. The tiger killed a cow and a calf in nearby vegetation; forest staff recovered the carcasses, and veterinary doctors were treating another injured calf, villagers told reporters. Officials said the animal walked into forests in Papikonda National Park and then returned toward tribal villages in Eluru district—an oscillating pattern that makes continuous tracking difficult when collar or signal coverage drops inside dense cover.

A Forest Department officer said workers at the twin tunnels and P. Regulator had been told not to move alone or venture out at night. Villagers were cautioned against entering forests or trekking hillocks for forest produce near project-affected settlements and tunnel zones. Medical and rescue teams with support staff were camping in the forests to trap the animal, the officer said, while acknowledging that signals go missing when the tiger moves deeper into forest.

The labour force at Polavaram draws heavily from other States—Odisha, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Jharkhand and elsewhere—people who live in temporary camps and travel between tunnel faces, regulator works and night shifts. For them, a large carnivore near active civil works is not a distant wildlife story; it is a safety rule that changes how they walk to duty, how contractors schedule night work, and how families in tribal habitations decide whether to collect produce.

Polavaram’s landscape already mixes submerged villages, hill forests and heavy machinery. Papikonda’s protected forests sit close enough that wildlife corridors and construction corridors collide. The 1 September filings do not claim the tiger has been captured, nor do they publish a confirmed identification beyond tracking reports. What they establish is recorded movement near Devaragondi and the P. Regulator, livestock kills, worker panic at the twin tunnels, and an active forest camping effort to trap the animal while advising solitary and night movement to stop.

Until the animal is trapped or moves permanently away from the works, site safety at Polavaram will run on two clocks: the construction schedule and the forest tracker’s map.