Environment and Forests has constituted a panel for deciding the best course of action in translocation of animals to Gir. The panel comprises 12 members including member secretary National Tiger Conservation Authority, the Chief Wildlife Wardens of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, member Wildlife Institute of India, and scientists Drs Ravi Chellam, Y.V. Jhala, NK Ranjeet Singh and PR Sinha. The panel will advice both the states on technical aspect of translocation, decide the composition of animals to be translocated, select the prides and animals, supervise the translocation, monitor it and periodically report to the Ministry. During the first deliberations on 29 July 2013, the panel acceded the need to follow the recent IUCN translocation guidelines but brushed aside Gujarat's objections against the process. A two-member team comprising Dr Ravi Chellam and Dr Y.V. Jhala has been set up to decide the translocation protocol and report within six weeks. Gujarat objected to meeting of the 12-member panel on 29 July 2013 before its petition had been reviewed and also to the presence of tiger experts on the panel, claiming that lion experts from Gujarat had been ignored, however that petition was rejected by the Supreme Court. In a further development, in April 2015, the Union government has admitted that Madhya Pradesh will have to enlarge the wildlife sanctuary's size, from to in order to implement the translocation of the Asiatic lions to Kuno-Palpur from Gujarat's Sasan Gir, a suggestion made in the original project report. This is the first time that the Government of India has accepted that the sanctuary needs to be enlarged. However, the expansion would require the relocation of several big villages, a move the Madhya Pradesh government is not keen to undertake. The Madhya Pradesh Forest Department is of the view that the present sanctuary area and its buffer total over 700 km2 and are therefore adequate, but have made no mention of notifying the buffer zone area also as a sanctuary. In a reversal of position, the Ministry of Environment and Forests decided in a meeting in June 2015 against translocation at present on the grounds that it would be detrimental to the breeding and survival of the lions as they lived in social prides. The turn-around of stance has been attributed by environmentalists supporting the translocation to Narendra Modi who had as Chief Minister of Gujarat stated that the lion was the pride of Gujarat