Why forest guides at Pench want a better rostering system

I have been working as a forest guide for seven years at the Pench Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh’s Seoni district. My husband also works at the reserve as a jeep driver for safaris. 

My job as a forest guide requires me to report at the reserve’s Turia Gate twice a day—at 6 am and 2.30 pm—for the morning and evening safari cycles. Turia is one of the three gates to the core zones of the reserve on the Madhya Pradesh side. (The other part of the reserve sits in Maharashtra.) 

There are always more guides and jeeps available than the number required per safari. So the forest department prepares a roster for the jeeps the night before. This decides which driver gets their turn on a particular day. Once the drivers have their slots, guides are assigned to their jeeps. They work on a rotational system: Let’s say that numbers 1–10 get their turn on one morning; then the afternoon cycle will begin with number 11. Similarly, the following morning, the cycle will begin with the next number in line.         

Approximately 30–35 jeeps make up one safari cycle. Although the roster for the jeeps is prepared beforehand, until it’s time for the safari to begin, there’s no way to accurately predict how many jeeps and guides will actually be needed. For example, the afternoon safari timing is 3 pm, but jeeps continue to go in till 4 pm depending on the demand. So guides have to wait around till 4–4.15 pm. Sometimes, guides and drivers themselves may not turn up because they are travelling or unwell. In such cases, the next person in line steps up, which is why drivers and guides are always needed on standby.

Guides earn INR 500 per safari, and when there are tips, there’s extra income, so we try not to lose the opportunity. But if a guide isn’t needed, they have to return home. This happens often. We wait at the gate for an hour to know if more cars and guides are required on account of last-minute bookings.

There’s a WhatsApp group for drivers to inform them about the roster and whether a higher or lower number of drivers is required for a particular shift. Since most of them live around Turia, it doesn’t take them long to drive to the gate. However, guides don’t have a similar group that tells them whether or not they should go. In addition, the forest department does not prepare a roster for them. If they don’t go and extra guides are needed, they lose their turn and potential earnings. At the same time, going all the way to the gate, waiting around to know if one is needed, and returning home when one is not is time and effort wasted, especially for women who have chores to complete at home.

What can make our work easier is a system that tells us how many guides are needed at the gate for a particular shift, even if this is a rough estimate. The forest department can look at booking patterns over time to come up with a number. This way we wouldn’t waste time going to the gate and learning there’s no work for us.

Sunanda Kawal works as a forest guide at Pench Tiger Reserve.

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Know more: Read this article to learn how human–wildlife conflict is mitigated at Corbett Tiger Reserve.