The Karnal district administration on Friday faced a novel protest over a unique issue. Tormented by millions of houseflies, thousands of residents of Rasoolpur Village loaded their tractors with all their household goods and camped close to Haryana Chief Minister Manohar lal Khattar’s house, demanding relief from the pests.
According to the villagers, Rasoolpur’s population of nearly three thousand people has shrunk substantially due to the migration forced by the flies.
Not just that, the enraged villagers threatened to stay put in the city till the time they were given respite from the flies that are reportedly `terrorizing’ them.
The villagers claim the swarms of flies have laid siege to Rasoolpur and the pesky insects have been bothering the villagers from dusk to dawn for the last three years. Unable to bear the torment caused by the incessant buzzing of the flies and the threat posed to their health any longer, many villagers have allegedly started leaving their homes and migrating to other areas. Villagers said that children were the worst affected as they were more prone to infection and parents had no option but to leave the village to escape the outbreak of diseases caused by the flies.
Rasoolpur Village is hardly three kilometres away from Karnal city, also known as CM City for being Khattar’s constituency. Karnal has also been picked up for the Smart City project.
But the harassed villagers have started calling their area `Makkhipur’ and claimed that there is nothing smart about the area. In fact, all they want is a smart idea to get rid of these flies.
While health and sanitation officials said that the poultry farms in the vicinity were the main reason for the flies breeding in such large numbers, villagers claimed there have been no efforts to contain the fly menace through fumigation or spraying of insecticides. Neither have there been any efforts by the sanitation department to clean up the surroundings in order to check the breeding of the flies, villagers said.
local MlA Harvindra Kalyan and Civil Surgeon Sant lal Verma conceded there was a fly menace in Rasoolpur and said they have issued notices to poultry farm owners and ordered spraying of insecticides to contain the flies. But till that happens, the villagers are not willing to budge from Karnal till the `buzz’ of the flies stops.