India all set to get cheetahs back in its jungles | Pics

India is all set to welcome eight cheetahs on September 17 when the big cats will be brought in from Namibia as part of a special agreement.

On Thursday, a modified passenger B747 Jumbo Jet, painted with the face of a tiger, landed in the Namibian capital of Windhoek to ferry the big cats.

Seventy years after they went extinct in the country, cheetahs are all set to walk again on the Indian lands.

On September 17, the cheetahs will be released in the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's presence.

Project Cheetah was approved by the Supreme Court of India in January 2020 as a pilot programme to reintroduce the species to India.

The eight cheetahs that are being brought to India include five females and three males. The five female cheetahs are aged between two and five years, while the male cheetahs are aged between 4.5 years and 5.5 years.

Each cheetah has been vaccinated, fitted with a satellite collar and kept in isolation at the CCF centre in Namibia.

The big cats were rescued by the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) and they have been living at the CCF centre since September 2020.