Catching wild animals is forest department’s job: BMC

Incapable of catching wild animals that venture into human habitat, the civic body has written to the forest department to handle the issue.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation had passed a proposal in the civic general body meeting last year that it will train firemen to catch the wild animals entering human localities. After opposition from firemen, BMC shelved the plan and decided to form a separate squad for the job.

The civic body’s director of the garden and zoo department rejected the proposal saying that all wild animals fall under the jurisdiction of the forest department and civic officials are not trained to handle them or catch them.

Vinod Shekhar, Congress corporator from Colaba, had moved the proposal in the civic general body meeting. “Whenever citizens call forest department, it refuses to catch snakes and monkeys. Many times, by the time the squad of forest department reaches the spot, the animals run off elsewhere. This happens in the case of monkeys,” Shekhar said.

Recently, there have been a lot of complaints from citizens on the menace of monkeys. Chembur and Bhandup have been the most-affected areas.

With the city having the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, albeit on its borders, wild animals such as leopards, and sometimes snakes and monkeys, venture into human habitation creating panic and chaos among the citizens. Citizens usually used to complain to the fire department, but it too is not trained to take care of such problems.