For the thousands of monkeys in North Delhi, the local civic body only has three people employed to catch them.
The North Delhi Municipal Corporation currently pays contract monkey catchers Rs.600 per animal and plans to increase it to Rs.800. The proposal to hike the rate will be presented to the North Corporation’s Standing Committee on Wednesday.
The proposal reads: “There is an acute shortage of monkey catchers and there are only three in the six Zones of the North Corporation.”
Standing Committee chairperson Mohan Bhardwaj said: “Monkeys have been a big menace and catching them is a difficult and time-consuming job. So, we are hoping that if we increase the rate, we get more catchers.”
Rates were revised by the erstwhile Municipal Corporation of Delhi from Rs.450 to Rs.600 in September 2010. The South Delhi Municipal Corporation had hiked the rate from Rs.600 to Rs.800 in February 2013, which according to North Corporation Veterinary Department officials was one of the reasons why they had only three monkey catchers.
“Finding monkey catchers has always been difficult. They prefer to work for the SDMC as they get Rs.800 per monkey there,” said Veterinary Department Director Dr. S.C. Sharma. He added that the department’s own staff takes complaints from residents about stray monkeys.
They then coordinate with the monkey catchers to put up cages. The monkey catchers then wait till the animal is trapped. The civic body then sends its veterinary vans to relocate the monkeys to the Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary
