Snake bite deaths rose by 135.5 percent in 2025 compared to 2023, according to a response given by the central government in the Lok Sabha.
Data from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change showed 183 deaths in 2023. The number rose to 370 in 2024 and 431 in 2025.
The Minister of State for Environment, Kirti Vardhan Singh, gave this information in a written reply in the Lok Sabha to a question raised by Congress MP Dr. Prabha Mallikarjun asking about the rising human-snake conflict and its causes.
What the state-wise data shows
Karnataka recorded the highest number of deaths among states. It recorded 157 deaths in 2025, up from 101 in 2024. Looking at 2025 figures, West Bengal (63), Tamil Nadu (27), Jharkhand (27), Madhya Pradesh (27) and Maharashtra (25) also recorded high numbers of cases.
Madhya Pradesh’s snake bite death figures also changed. Government data showed 12 deaths each in 2023 and 2024. The number rose to 27 in 2025.
The central government has advised states to declare snakebite a notifiable disease under their public health laws.
Section 2 of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, gives state governments the power to enforce special measures and declare a disease notifiable. Doctors must then report such cases to the government. The Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) monitors these cases.
Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, Kerala, Maharashtra, and Odisha have declared it a notifiable disease so far.
The government said in its reply that wildlife conservation and management remain mainly a state responsibility. It has also issued management guidelines under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
Experts question the data
The government said states and union territories record these figures under the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme. The same system monitors snakebite cases and deaths.
Experts questioned these figures.
Conservation biologist and Snake Hub founder Vivek Sharma said, “A large state like Madhya Pradesh can’t have so few deaths.” Sharma said government data did not match ground realities.
“A single district hospital sees 15 to 20 deaths in one season. If you add up districts across the country, the number will be far higher,” he said.
He said many deaths go unrecorded in official data. “Patients often return home after treatment and die later. But such cases don’t get recorded as snakebite deaths. Many times, people never reach a hospital, or no post-mortem is done, so these deaths stay off the record. It’s similar to how many COVID deaths also went unrecorded in official data,” he said.
Sharma said, “It’s simply not possible that only 431 deaths happened in the entire country. Most research estimates 50,000 to 60,000 deaths every year, and even that is considered underreported.”
Data from a study published in the journal eLife, “Trends in snakebite deaths in India from 2000 to 2019,” supported Sharma’s argument. The study found that around 1.2 million people died of snakebite in India between 2000 and 2019. That works out to roughly 58,000 deaths a year on average.
He said recording all cases uniformly was not easy. “The reporting system is weak in many places. Many cases never reach the health system. Deaths in rural areas and at the private level often go unrecorded.”
Climate change raises the risk
Sharma named climate change and environmental shifts as factors behind rising human-snake conflict.
He said changing rainfall patterns and drought conditions were shifting snake habitats in some regions, which could increase their presence in new areas.
A recently published study in Nature Scientific Reports found that climate change was shifting snake distribution and hotspots, which could create new zones of human-snake conflict.
The government also issued an advisory in 2021 to address human-wildlife conflict. It suggested coordination between departments, identification of sensitive zones, and formation of rapid response teams.
The government has also prepared a national action plan aiming to halve snakebite deaths by 2030. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare prepared this plan along with other ministries.
Health measures for snakebite prevention are being implemented through state and district nodal officers under the National Health Mission. NAPSE treats surveillance as central, so that problems can be identified and addressed in time.
It sets up joint monitoring of human, wildlife, and animal health aspects, along with a system to implement the action plan at the state level.
Chief Minister Dr. Mohan Yadav has also pushed to extend snakebite prevention and treatment measures down to the panchayat and police station level during the monsoon.
Sharma said more focus was needed on awareness and education. “It would be far more effective if children were taught about this at the school level,” he said.
Overall, government data showed a rise in snakebite deaths, while experts said data collection and reporting systems need to get stronger to understand the real situation.
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