As many as 500 monkeys are roaming freely on the streets of Chandigarh. And, the northern sectors of the city have large number of simians, terrorising the denizens everyday.
This has been revealed in the ongoing survey of the UT Forest and Wildlife Department. The department is conducting a survey to identify the groups of monkeys in the city and the areas where their population is in large numbers here.
The survey which began nearly a month ago has identified 12 groups of monkeys in Chandigarh. According to the survey, each group has 35-40 numbers of monkeys. And, the monkey menace is prevalent in Sector 7, 9, 11, 26, 28, Punjab University Sector 14, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) in Sector 12. The identified groups of monkeys are often seen in these sectors at different times,” revealed the survey.
The information collected during the survey is likely to assist the Department in catching monkeys at various locations in the city.
Kuldeep Sharma, UT deputy Conservator of forests while talking to The Pioneer said, The UT Forest and Wildlife Department is conducting a survey to identify the groups of monkeys and areas of Chandigarh where the monkey menace is prevalent. So far, the Department’s staff has identified 12 different groups of monkeys that enter the residential areas of the city every day in search of food.”
He said. “Every group has 35-40 monkeys. The Department’s staff is observing the timings and activities of these groups at different locations of Chandigarh.”
Kuldeep further said, “The survey is not regarding studying monkeys’ behavior. The Department is observing the activities and timings during which the group of monkeys enters various schools, residential areas and government/private buildings of the city.”
“All this information would assist the Department in catching the monkeys. This information would help the Department in setting up cages at the right location and at right time to catch monkeys here,” he added.
Besides, the Department is also setting up small pockets of fruit bearing trees in the forest areas to keep monkeys confined to the forests.
Notably, the Department has failed to elicit desired response from monkey catchers this year. The Department had floated tenders for the third time seeking lowest bids from the monkey catchers to catch monkeys in Chandigarh. However, there were no takers for monkey catching business here.
The UT Forest and Wildlife Department had hired trained monkey catcher last year and had managed to catch as many as 105 monkeys in six months. For each catch, the Department had paid Rs500 to the monkey catcher.
Earlier, the UT Forest and Wildlife Department also had two ‘langurs’ to chase away the monkeys and was paying around Rs 7500 each per month to the trainers of both the ‘langurs’. But after the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) ban on the use of grey langurs for the purpose, the Department cannot use langurs to scare away simians in the city.