A 'loophole' in the Madhya Pradesh government's official portal to make online reservations to enter the state's popular tiger reserves seems to have made it easy for private jungle lodge owners to exploit the system for profit. Local tour operators and regular visitors allege that genuine tourists can't find tickets because lodge owners flood the portal with proxy bookings in advance. Drives into tiger territory are then resold at hefty premiums. Complaints to the state wildlife department have fallen on deaf ears.

The state's six tiger reserves - Kanha, Bandhavgarh, Satpura, Pench, Panna and Sanjay-Dubri - are open from October till June and draw visitors from all over the world. Online reservations open 120 days ahead of the season. The status of available dates for the coming season, on mponline.gov.in, the official website, shows that nearly all slots on holidays and weekends are already filled.

And this is how the system is being compromised: across tiger country, lodge owners make group reservations in the name of their employees by paying Rs 1,550 per vehicle. Later, when their guests arrive, they simply 'add on' names for a pumped-up fee. For instance, most reservations made on October 20 and 21 have been on behalf of employees working at some of the reputed forest lodges in the state. Saptarishi Sehgal, a tour operator in Jabalpur, has filed a complaint with the chief wildlife warden. He has demanded that the facility of adding on names to the original booking be discontinued. As things stand, Sehgal points out that no slots are available during the Diwali and Dussehra holidays or during long weekends.

Samir Chordia, a wildlife photographer from Bengaluru who comes to Bandhavgarh 3-4 times a year, concurs. He says the 'add on' feature is a nuisance that prevents genuine visitors from planning their trips. According to him, proxy booking has prompted black-marketing and profiteering. In many past cases, it was found that tickets booked for a particular day were returned and rebooked the following day. Big lodges, with their steep tariffs, can afford to lose money on cancellations.

The number of vehicles allowed in a reserve is limited by the park's carrying capacity. In the case of Bandhavgarh, a total of 56 vehicles are allowed in the morning, while the limit is 55 in the evening. But with more than 1,000 hotel and jungle lodge rooms available, the demand evidently far exceeds the availability.

MP has some of India's best managed tiger sanctuaries. The forest entry scam can only bring a bad name to the state.