Forest department wants Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to play the lead role when it comes to dealing with the increasing monkey menace in Mumbai, citing its own staff crunch and the fact that across India it was the Municipal Corporations that were dealing with this issue.
Forest department wants Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to play the lead role when it comes to dealing with the increasing monkey menace in Mumbai, citing its own staff crunch and the fact that across India it was the Municipal Corporations that were dealing with this issue.
However BMC officials, DNA spoke to about this issue said that they lacked the skills to manage monkey issue in Mumbai and since the monkeys were coming from the forests and were also Schedule II animals, it was best that the forest department deals with the issue as even Fire brigade had its hand tied being an emergency service provider.
In fact, the forest department’s emphasis that BMC takes up the responsibility also comes from the fact that the Thane territorial division has been in recent times flooded with calls from various areas complaining about monkey menace including Lower Parel where it took forest officials and Veterinarian Officer around eight days to trap a monkey.
Meanwhile, animal welfare organisations claimed that despite receiving regular calls from citizens across Mumbai- dealing with stray monkey causing trouble in their area, BMC has been simply referring the citizens to contact the forest department, who in turn has been sending it staff or doling out numbers of private monkey catchers who at times even charge a hefty sum to trap these monkeys resulting in the problem not being addressed properly.
“Monkeys are attracted due to improper garbage and people feeding them and this is a civic issue and just like BMC takes responsibility for dealing with stray dogs and even has a dedicated staff for it, now its time for them to have something similar for monkey or train the staff dealing with dogs in dealing with monkey’s,” said another forest official adding that they would be more than happy to even train the BMC staff and even pointed that BMC not only had several Veterinarians but also has a fully functional zoo that too can help.
In fact citing example the forest official said that be it Delhi, Shimla or other important cities that are facing human-monkey conflict, its the local municipal corporation, which is managing the issue and are even looking at sterilization and other ways of birth control. "BMC can't simply shun its responsibility," said the official.
According to Pawan Sharma, Honorary Wildlife Warden of Thane and president of Resqink Association for Wildlife Welfare (RAWW) it was the time that BMC showed its responsibility. “In other states, municipal corporations have taken responsibility and are even working towards managing the population of monkey and the monkey issue will only rise in the city in coming years and hence it was important that Forest department and BMC stop passing the buck and work out a solution,” he said adding that BMC has resources and should even consider setting up a rescue centre at the Zoo, which is under renovation.
A senior BMC official said that the Forest department had never approached them to discuss this issue. “We will support the forest department in the best possible way but they should meet our top officials and take the issue up,” said the official.
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