Urgently required: Expert monkey catchers for Chandigarh forest dept

For what seems like an earnest appeal,the Forest Department of the UT Administration after having failed in the past,has once again floated tenders seeking lowest bids from the monkey catchers in the city to catch hold of the monkeys.

As per tenders floated by the forests department,as a prerequisite,one has to have an experience of “Catching Monkeys with any Forest Department/ Municipal Corporation”. Further,the tender document says it is desired that the the interested firm should have an experience of having caught 500 monkeys in the past two years. While the UT Administration has fixed the number of monkeys to be caught at 400,the scope of work can be increased or decreased depending on the work,states the tender.

In the past,the tender was floated on April 4. However,after it failed to elicit the desirous response from the monkey catchers,the department decided to take the plunge again. The recent tender has been floated on July 25 and the last date for the tender is August 13. The bidders are required to deposit an earnest amount of Rs 2000 and in case after the allotment of tender,they fail to complete the task,the amount would be forfeited.

The move comes after the department failed in its own earlier attempts to catch the monkeys. Says UT Conservator of Forests Santosh Kumar,“ Monkeys are very intelligent animals. They not only trace back the routes but also start identifying our teams and monkey catchers and on seeing them even from a distance,they vanish from the area only to reappear at the same sight after few days. Also,we want ti appeal the general public to stop feeding them. Despite our earnest efforts,the continuous supply of food items to the monkeys keep them hooked to their earmarked places in the city”.

In the past,a Gurgaon based team of monkey catchers was successful in catching 72 monkeys from Sector 26,27 and they were released in Kansal and Nepali forests but after a few days,they all came back. Later the team of experts from Gurgaon left the work midway due to the retracing behaviour of the monkeys. The department had the forfeited their earnest money which was deposited as security amount due to their inability to accomplish the task. At that time,Rs 500 was paid to the team for every monkey it caught. The department is in touch with the experts who had played a key role in catching and controlling the population of monkeys in Himachal Pradesh.

Sterilised: 5,627 stray dogs in last four years

A total of 120 dogs are being sterlised in a month in the city. As per the census conducted in 2007,there were 5,713 stray dogs in the city. Between April 2008 and April 2012,as many as 5,627 sterilisation operations have been conducted on stray dogs. While as many as 22,000 dog bite cases were recorded in a year in the Sector 19 dispensary. These were some of the figures that were presented in the meeting of the General House of the Municipal Corporation as the issue of menace of stray dogs came up for discussion.

A report on the measures taken to deal with the menace along with copies of the by-laws were also put forth in the House. Councillors expressed concern at the growing menace of stray dogs and proposed that the MC should bear the cost of treatment of those bitten by the stray dogs. It was conveyed that over the past few months,the medicines for injections were not available in the dispensary.

Councillors opined that stray dogs had created a terror. With a large number of dog bite cases being reported,children were especially scared to go out on their own. There have been instances when stray dog have bitten the councillors or their kin.

While several proposals were discussed in the meeting,most of these were found to be outside the purview of the Animal Birth Control (Dog) Rules,2001,that govern how these stray dogs are to be tackled. Councillors proposed that a dog pound could be set up. The proposal has been doing the rounds for the past few years. However,concerns are being expressed over how upkeep of the dogs if these are kept in dog pounds.

It was further proposed that city be divided into four zones. Instead of treatment being available only in Sector 19 dispensary,it should be available in one dispensary in each zone. The councillors claimed they were given no information on the camps held to administer anti-rabies vaccines to stray dogs. The issue of identification of stray dogs that have been sterilized was raised.

The issue of sterilisation using the injection that was available for the purpose was raised. The officials explained that the proposal was rejected by the Animal Welfare Board as rules do not permit this.