HimVani
Shimla: Fighting monkey menace, the Himachal Pradesh government has asked the Union government to include the appointment of animal chasers under the NREGA scheme.
“A request has been sent to the Union Rural Development ministry recently for inclusion of daily wagers employed to protect crops from monkeys and other wild animals,” state Rural Development and Panchayati Raj secretary Srikant Baldi said. The Centre has been asked to consider appointment of these workers on the lines of ‘chowkidars’ in panchayats.
Controlling the increasing monkey population in the state has been a political issue during elections as farmers have been complaining of large-scale damage to their crops from these animals. Considering the magnitude of the problem, the state government has been running a sterilisation campaign in the state to deal with the monkey menace, and had recently also allowed killing of samians found destroying crops.
