India's Project Cheetah has reached a population of 53 cheetahs, with 33 cubs born domestically since the programme began. The Centre is now planning further expansion of the initiative. Cheetahs were reintroduced to India after the species went locally extinct in 1952, with the first batch of African cheetahs translocated from Namibia to Kuno National Park, Madhya Pradesh, in September 2022, marking the world's first intercontinental large carnivore translocation.

Project Cheetah is India's flagship large-carnivore reintroduction programme, and the first in the world to translocate cheetahs across continents. The cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) was declared extinct in India in 1952 after the last three were shot in Koriya district, then part of Madhya Pradesh. The species had no legal protection at the time.

The reintroduction began on 17 September 2022, when Prime Minister Modi released eight Namibian cheetahs at Kuno National Park (KNP), Madhya Pradesh. A second batch of 12 cheetahs arrived from South Africa in February 2023, bringing the founding population to 20. The current count of 53 — including 33 India-born cubs — signals successful breeding in captivity and semi-wild conditions.

The nodal ministry is the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC). The programme is supervised by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), which also oversees Project Tiger. The legal backbone is the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, under which Kuno is a National Park.

For examiners, the key static hooks are: (a) the species' IUCN status — Vulnerable; (b) the distinction between African cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus jubatus) and the Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus), which is Critically Endangered and survives only in Iran; (c) Kuno National Park's prior significance as a proposed second home for Asiatic lions; and (d) the intercontinental translocation precedent. The count milestones — original 20, now 53 — are classic fill-in-the-blank targets.