The state has barely 150 elephants and most of these are either part of the official teams of the state forest department or its wildlife parks.

A 740 sq km area has been earmarked for the proposed elephant park in Bijnore. It will depend largely on the floating elephant population from the neighbouring Uttarakhand, the official said.

'In order to provide a special status to the elephant, the government has titled the new scheme as Project Elephant,' Patnaik added.

Incidentally, elephant is the election symbol of Chief Minister Mayawati's ruling Bahujan Samaj Party.