Anil Malhotra

Anil Malhotra

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Category: Environment

Anil Malhotra Profile

  • Name:
  • Anil Malhotra
  • Spouse:
  • Pamela Malhotra

Anil Malhotra Biography

Anil Malhotra and Pamela Malhotra – the NRI couple who spent their entire wealth and earnings to make a beautiful wild life sanctuary in 3000 acres of barren land, and their struggles to set goals and reach destination point are just unbelievable!  The Malhotra couple started SAI Sanctuary (Save Animal Initiative), the only private wildlife sanctuary in India, in Kodagu district of Karnataka which now host many wild animals and birds including Bengal tiger, elephants, Hyena, snakes, Wild Boar, Leopards, Sambhar etc. They started off with 55 acres of barren land in 1991, and slowly converted it into a beautiful forest of over 300 acres. The sanctuary with a beautiful lake also supports different aquatic species.

 

Both the parents of Anil were Pakistanis. His mother was a member of Quata royal family. His family owned a textile shop in Lahore. But following partition, the family shifted to India. The family lived in Kurukshetra, Haryana and used the free land given by government for agriculture for their livelihood. When his mother got attracted to the spirituality of Sri Aurobindo, he along with his mother moved to Pondicherry. After the death of Sri Aurobindo, the family moved back to Pune where his mother started an Ashram. Anil completed his studies from St. Xavier’s and Law College, Mumbai and took PhD from Germany before he moved to US. He became a successful industrialist and Pamela from New Jersey was his employee, whom he married in 1976.

 

Anil was 37 and Pamela was 26 when they got married. After spending 10 years in Hawai the couple moved to India when Anil’s father became bedridden. His father passed away before he reached India. The couple went to Haridwar to complete the rituals of father, when they became heartbroken seeing the pathetic condition of Haridwar, and how man’s selfishness has caused huge destruction to Mother Earth. The couple decided to start a sanctuary buying 10 acres of land in Uttar Pradesh. But laws of UP don’t allow a family to possess more than 12 acres of land.

 

Later the couple wandered in different parts of south India and chose Kodagu as their destination. Though they were discouraged by their friends, they didn’t step back. He sold his property at Hawai to buy 55 acres near a stream. Many were surprised by Malhotras’ ‘madness’. Yet it was not an easy task for the couple to convert the barren land to a beautiful forest. Due to intense use of fertilizers the soil was so much polluted that it was not useful for farming. He later started buying land from nearby farmers and allowed trees and plants to grow in that area. Now the area has 300 acres, which gives shelter to many varieties of flora and fauna.

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Updated: June 19, 2016

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