The State Government has decided to establish centres to control birth among the monkey population in all districts as part of its plans to reduce their menace to standing crops, at a time when crop diversification is in focus after the advice to farmers no to go for paddy in the rabi season.
Farmers’ problems including huge crop loss being suffered with troops of monkeys swarming the farm fields, eating and damaging the standing crops, steps to control the monkey menace and the methods being adopted in other States to tackle the problem were discussed at a high-level review meeting held here on Friday.
Ministers A. Indrakaran Reddy (Forests) and S. Niranjan Reddy (Agriculture), Rajya Sabha Member K.R. Suresh Reddy held the meeting with convenor of Committee to Control Monkey Menace and Secretary (Agriculture) M. Raghunandan Rao, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Social Forestry) R.M. Dobriyal, Conservator of Forests (Hyderabad) M.J. Akbar and others.
The Ministers stated that the government had already formed a committee to tackle the monkey menace for agriculture sector and even studied the problem and the methods being followed there to tackle the problem.
The Ministers stated that as per the Forest Department estimate, the monkey population in the State was about 5 lakh to 6 lakh and a centre to treat monkey with birth control measures was already opened in Nirmal district.
It was decided at the meeting to establish a centre in every district to implement birth control measures among monkeys including examining the possibility to set up such centres with public-private partnership. The Ministers admitted that monkeys were causing huge loss to farmers by eating up, damaging and sometimes destroying the standing crops.
The Ministers asked the officials to examine other possibilities to check the menace within the purview of laws and also to study the methods being followed in Himachal Pradesh to control monkeys stating that it would hold key to the diversification of crops in the State. They suggested growing different plants in the forests and along highways as also in ‘Palle Prakruti Vanalu’ (village parks) so that fruits were available to monkeys in every season.
The committee was also told to take up enumeration of monkey population and the loss being caused to farmers with the monkey menace.