Context: Recently, the State government of Assam notified Dihing Patkai as a National Park, four days after creating the 422-sq. km Raimona National Park in western Assam’s Kokrajhar district.

Key Points

• Assam now has the third most National Parks after the 12 in Madhya Pradesh and nine in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands
• The “last remaining stretches” of the Assam Valley tropical wet evergreen forests have become Assam’s seventh National Park.
• The five older National Parks in the State are Kaziranga, Manas, Nameri, Orang and Dibru-Saikhowa.
• With final notification to declare Raimona in lower Assam and Dihing Patkai in upper Assam as sixth and seventh national parks respectively.
• Kaziranga and Manas are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. They are also tiger reserves along with Nameri and Orang.

About Dehing Patkai

• As a national park, its importance will increase and new rules will bring increased vigilance to the area. While the first proposal to accord national park status to the region dates back to 1995, Dehing Patkai was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 2004.
• The newly-notified national park will be administered by the Soraipung Range of Digboi Forest Division and Jeypore Range of Dibrugarh Forest Division.

Description: Earlier known as "Dehing Patkai Wildlife Sanctuary" is located within the larger Dehing Patkai Elephant Reserve, which spreads across the coal- and oil-rich districts of Upper Assam (Dibrugarh and Tinsukia districts).

• The Dehing Patkai Wildlife Sanctuary is also known as the Jeypore Rainforest.

Dehing is the name of the river that flows through this forest and Patkai is the hill at the foot of which the sanctuary lies.

• The oldest refinery of Asia in Digboi and ‘open cast’ coal mining at Lido are located near the sanctuary.
• It is famous for Assam Valley Tropical Wet Evergreen Forests bordering Arunachal Pradesh.

Fauna: Rare fauna found in the region include Chinese pangolin, flying fox, wild pig, sambar, barking deer, gaur, serow and Malayan giant squirrels.

• It is the only sanctuary in India which is home to seven different species of wild cats - tiger, leopard, clouded leopard, leopard cat, golden cat, jungle cat and marbled cat.
• Assamese macaque, a primate found in the forest, is in the red list of Near Threatened species.
• It has the highest concentration of the rare endangered White Winged Wood Duck.

Flora: Dehing Patkai is a deciduous rainforest interspersed with semi-evergreen and lush green flora.

Additional Information

Raimona National Park

• This national park of Assam is located in Gossaigaon subdivision of Kokrajhar district under BTR. 
• Park is a part of contiguous forest patch having an area of 422 km2. It covers northern part of notified Ripu Reserve Forest which is the westernmost buffer to Manas Tiger Reserve. 
• Park is home to golden langur, tigers, Asian elephants, clouded leopards, wild buffalo, Indian gaur, hornbill, spotted deer, 170 species of birds, 150 species of butterflies and 380 varieties of plants & orchids.