In compliance with the Supreme Court of India directives, all tiger reserve management has issued directives to prohibit the carry and use of mobile phones during safari drives. It means, if you are carrying a smartphone during safari drive is an illegal act and thus every tourist (Indian or Foreigner) are expected not to carry it during safari drives, even for photography only.

Major mobile phone guidelines:

Read the below given points carefully to get answer to many of your important questions:

1. Restriction is on both carrying and using of mobile phones. It means even switched off or aeroplane mode mobile phones are not allowed to carry by visitors.
2. Violation of the rule can result into monetary fine, cancellation of safari permit, action of safari guide and driver if they hide the information or support the guest on using it.
3. If you reached the safari gate with your mobile phone then you need to keep the mobile phone in a box, locked by management team, kept in safari vehicle. It will be reopened, on completion of safari drive, when vehicle exit the safari park.
4. If you are living inside the safari zone area of a tiger reserve, like residing inside forest rest-house etc. then we may use mobile phone when we are inside residence campus area.

How to do wildlife photography ?

As mobile phone use is prohibited thus visitors have only option to carry their own camera for wildlife photography. If ,due to any reason, you are not having camera and want to do photograph then solution is to hire the camera from market, use it and return it back to its owner.

Why mobile phones banned in Indian tiger reserves ?

Although officially no exact reason given for banning mobile phones during safari drives are tiger reserves but as per experts, safari vehicle congestion and its negative impacts on wildlife tourism were the main reason. In social media and print news, we were getting many news on safari vehicle congestion at tiger sighting points which leads problems to wild animals in their natural course of movement due to which they were forced to changed their natural route, tigress with cubs feels unsecured or disturbed due to safari vehicles sound and tourists hooting, accidents due to selfie activity etc. All such incidents causing negative image of park management and increasing stress level on wild animals. Quick gathering of large number of safari vehicles at one point was mainly due to message passing by tourists or safari guides or safari drivers thus mobile phone use was tried to be minimized to put control over such safari malpractices.

Why forest officials, safari guides carry mobile phone ?

Many time we will notice that on one side park management is asking us (tourists) not to carry mobile phone and at the same time safari guides are carrying mobile phones. Question will arise in our mind, why this double standards or it is injustice with tourists.

Here answer lies on the fact that the mobile phone carrying motives varies. A forest department officials or safari guides will be carrying mobile phone to assist in park management and conservation support related activities where as tourists carry mobile phones for photography or message sharing. Their are many forest department apps used for park management purpose. Safari guides have mobile app which tracks their safari route movements to ensure that they don't over-speed during drives and don't go beyond their safari limits. In order to collect the data, they need to keep their mobile phone in switched on mode. At the same time in case of emergency like any accident or vehicle damage, mobile phone may be used to report the matter to park management.