Project Tiger was initiated in 1973 by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change of the Government of India.

As per Ministry of Environment and Forests, the wild tiger population in India stood at 2,226 in 2014 with an increase of 30.5% since the 2010 estimate.

[12] Project Tiger is headed by an additional director general (ADG) based at New Delhi with regional offices at Bangalore, Guwahati and Nagpur.

As a part of the project, state are provided assistance on curtailing poaching activities such as disseminating information on poachers, assisting in combing forest floor to check for traps and other anti-poaching activities, maintaining tiger database, providing grants and training for deployment of Special Tiger Protection Force.

Some of the wildlife experts have questioned the implications of the same on tiger conservation as it will increase human-animal conflict and might give opportunities for poaching.

[20][21] While others argue that this overlooks the reality of human-tiger coexistence and the abuse of power by authorities wherein local people who have been co-existing with the animals being evicted from their traditional lands rather than allowing them a proper role in decision-making to aid the tiger crisis.