Raipur, Sept. 15 -- The Indravati Tiger Reserve in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh will reopen to tourists on November 1, allowing organised wildlife tourism in one of the state's most remote and least-explored forests for the first time in four decades.

Spread across 2,799.07 sq km, Indravati, located in Bijapur district, is one of the largest tiger reserves in central India. Its core or critical tiger habitat covers 1,258.37 sq km, while another 1,540.70 sq km forms the buffer area, according to the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA).

The Indravati reserve was established under Project Tiger in 1983, but prolonged left wing extremism (LWE) kept large parts of the reserve inaccessible not only to tourists but also to the fo...