despite accusations that the tiger population is being revived, the actual numbers of big cats across India stand at 3,232. Though the Union government is yet to release the 1997 Tiger Census Report, the Worldwide Fund for Nature-Tiger Conservation Programme ( wwf-tcp ) made available the figures provided by the 16 state governments to the Centre. Madhya Pradesh recorded the maximum of 927 tigers followed by Uttar Pradesh with 475 and Assam listing 458. The 1993 estimate had shown 3,750 tigers in 21 states as compared to 4,334 in 1989.

The director of the Project Tiger, P K Sen said the results of the prestigious project to save the tiger were not very encouraging, but added that the project was not a failure. "Declining management standards, increasing incidents of poaching and inadequate budgetary allocations are hampering the conservation programme,' said Sen. The tiger population at the launch of Tiger Project was just 1,827, informed Sen.