In the last eight months, around 2 lakh rats were caught in the island city, while, in the suburbs, the count is not even one-third of that.
‘Posh and immaculate’ South Mumbai is a hotbed for rats. The rat population has been found to be much higher in the island city than in the suburbs. The figures in the report compiled by the public health department show that the rat count in SoBo is booming.
In the last eight months, around 2 lakh rats were caught in the island city, while, in the suburbs, the count is not even one-third of that. The insecticide department of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation caught 44,305 rats in the suburbs — 25,825 from the western, and 18,480 from the eastern.
More rats were caught in Colaba, Churchgate and Malabar Hill than the comparatively filthier wards such as Kurla, Dharavi and Deonar. Deonar and Mulund, where dumping grounds are located and all the garbage collected across the city is dumped, too have seen less number of rats caught.
At Colaba and Malabar Hill 21,774 and 23,813 rats were caught respectively till August. Comparatively, at Kurla 2,150 and at Dharavi 13,985 rats were caught. Around 3,273 rats were found in Deonar and 3,992 in Mulund.
Also, more than 1 lakh rat burrows were found in Girgaum, Bhendi Bazar, Chandanwadi. Civic officials attribute the high number of rats in these areas to the large number of ‘house gullies’. “Areas like Girgaum, Chandanwadi have a large number of house gullies. These are suitable breeding points for rodents,” said a senior civic official.
However, officials could not give a specific reason why so many rats were found in the posh areas of South Mumbai as compared to the suburbs. “We don’t have a system to count rats. Whichever rat is trapped and killed that number is registered in our records,” the official added.
This year, Mumbai has seen nearly 2.44 lakh rats caught. The figures were 2 lakh and 1.94 lakh in 2010 and 2009 respectively. Since 2005, more than 11 lakh rats have been caught in the whole city.
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