September 10, 2026, (Inside AI) — Gujarat is building a Rs 150-crore artificial intelligence surveillance hub in Gandhinagar to track lions, sloth bears, black bucks, and wild asses across protected habitats. Forest and Environment Minister Arjun Modhwadia confirmed the Command and Control Centre is already under installation and will beam live feeds for real-time emergency response.
The system marks a shift from watchtowers, beat guards, and radio sets to a networked CCTV, drone, and AI camera grid. It will cover the Greater Gir landscape, the Little Rann of Kutch, the Velavadar blackbuck sanctuary, and sloth bear corridors in Banaskantha.
The trigger is a wave of man-animal conflict. In July 2026 alone, a lion killed a 12-year-old boy on Girnar mountain, another killed a 21-year-old man in Amreli, and a third pinned down a herdsman near Palitana. Between 2014 and 2024, 19 lions died in train hits.
Modhwadia said the centre will also receive feeds from Western Railway and the Sheth Anandji Kalyanji trust, custodian of the Palitana Jain pilgrimage. The trust issued a July advisory urging visitors to travel in groups after frequent lion sightings in the Shetrunjay hills.
The railway network includes 70 trackers, watch towers, underpasses, and an Intrusion Detection System with AI monitoring, CCTV, LED train lights, and optic fibre cables along the Liliya-Savarkundla section. No lion deaths occurred from August 2024 to May 2026, according to a forest department affidavit.
Frontline forest staff will get body-worn cameras linked to the control centre. Modhwadia explained, “Suppose someone is out (in the forest) and there is a lion, leopard or sloth bear in front of them; you will know of the movement.”
Gujarat remains the only home of the Asiatic lion, whose population hit 891 across 11 districts in the last census. The state also holds the sole gene pool of the Indian Wild Ass, Equus Hemionus Khur.
Separately, the state has secured a 100-hectare enclosure for the second Great Indian Bustard chick born in Naliya, Kutch. The first chick, born via the jump-start method using a fertilised egg from Rajasthan, was suspected killed nearly a month after birth. Gujarat has only three female bustards left.
Modhwadia said, “An enclosure has also been created so that it is not hunted (by raptors etc.) The bird has been protected… The enclosure is of around 100 hectares. This time, it (the chick) will grow. We are ensuring that there is no issue. The survival depends on so many factors. The chick is being taken care of like a child in the family.”
The AI grid is designed to detect prey base decline, tree overgrowth, and forest activity patterns, not just conflicts. That shifts wildlife management from reactive patrols to predictive planning. Whether the system can handle Gujarat’s terrain and data load remains an open question.
