Lutyens’ Delhi is on the way to becoming a ‘smart city’, as per the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), but the civic body doesn’t know what to do with the stray monkeys that call the area home.
After presenting the budget for 2015-2016, NDMC chairperson Jalaj Srivastava was asked about what the council was doing about the hordes of monkeys in New Delhi.
“We have tried everything we can think of. If the public has better suggestions, we would be open to them,” said Mr. Srivastava.
NDMC Medical Officer of Health Dr. P.K. Sharma listed out all the experiments. He said the NDMC had caught the monkeys and sent them to the Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary, but the simian population had only increased.
“Then we engaged langur handlers to drive away the monkeys but the Environment and Forest Ministry told us to stop that,” said Dr. Sharma.
Then, about 40 NDMC employees started imitating the langurs, by making noises to scare away monkeys.
“Then we trained some people to scare away monkeys using air guns, and we have also started feeding them in the jungle areas so that they don’t venture in residential places,” said Dr. Sharma.
