Bovine, monkey scare everywhere

Bhanu P Lohumi

Monkey and wild animal menace coupled with invasion of cultivated fields by stray cattle has become a bane of farm sector in predominantly agrarian hilly state of Himachal as inconsistent policies and fractured approach of successive governments has failed to provide a lasting solution to the problem.

During the past three decades, the problem has defied solution and attained political overtones as the government has failed to adopt a holistic approach and there is hardly any participation of stakeholders in the implementation of strategy and programmes formulated by the government.

The simians have emerged as real villain as their mobility and reach is more as compared to other wild/ stray animals and they raid rural and urban areas alike. 

As per a survey conducted in 2013 by the Agriculture Department, the area affected by monkeys and other animals was 69,250 hectare and 37,559 hectare, respectively, while the loss to crops was 35 per cent and 20 per cent.

The area abandoned or left unsown due to monkey and wild animals was 19,562 hectare and loss to crops in terms of value was Rs 184 crore while the loss to horticulture was estimated at Rs 150 crore. The area under foodgrains as well as vegetables was affected and losses in terms of quantity were 81,750.69 metric tonnes for foodgrains and 21,313 metric tonnes for vegetable.

After a ban was imposed on the export of monkeys in 1978, their number shot up and the government hired monkey catchers and relocated them to distant places. But this did not help. On the contrary, people of the areas where moneys were released were up in arms. The government exercised the option of sterlising monkeys and over a period of time the money paid for capturing monkeys increased from Rs 200 to Rs 300, Rs 500 and Rs 700 and a proposal has been sent to the government to increase it to Rs 1,000. Following pressing demand from farmers’ organisations, monkeys were declared vermin in Shimla Municipal Corporation area and 91 tehsils in the state.

What Kisan Sabha says

Kisan Sabha president Kuldeep Tanwar has accused the government of not taking the issue seriously and said in spite of monkeys being declared vermin, farmers are not coming out to shoot them as the ammunition is very expensive and people who have not pressed the trigger of the gun during the past three decades due to ban on poaching cannot be expected to fire.

“The government should make Rural and Urban Development Department as a nodal agency and form a squad of trained shooters and ex-servicemen and constitute a task force to carry out scientific culling under the supervision of experts,” he suggested, reiterating the demand for lifting the ban on the export of monkeys.

“There is demand of 1-lakh monkeys for experimentation at international level for bio-medical research and Indian monkeys are considered closest to humans. After the monkeys were declared vermin and were being caught for sterilisation, why is the ban on export not being lifted?” he questioned. The Kisan Sabha constituted “Kheti Bachao Sangharsh Samiti” by involving 14 organisations in 2005, which has been consistently raising the issue and creating awareness.

The losses to farmers is to the tune of Rs 500 crore annually and out of the total 6.60 lakh hectare cultivable land in the state, farmers have left farming on 70,000 hectares. There are 9.61 lakh land holdings in Himachal, he said. Cases of massive poisoning of monkeys have been seen in Sirmaur, Shimla, Solan and Una districts, he said.  

Villagers speak

“My potato, wheat and maize crop were damaged by wild pigs and monkeys. A large number of farmers are abandoning cultivation and leaving the fields barren as protecting crops against attacks by monkeys and wild animals has become torturous,” said Kishori Lal of Domahar village in Gumarwhi.

“The government has declared monkeys as vermin in several areas of the state but local farmers are not ready to shoot monkeys damaging crops and want the government to do the killing. The another issue bothering farmers is stray cattle barging into cultivable fields and damaging crops,” said another villager of Lehri.

“The farmers have been forced to abandon farming as peacock, leopard, pigs and other wild animals cause colossal damage to crops and farmers are not aware about any solar fencing scheme for farmers,” said Kaur Singh of Sameerpur in Hamirpur.

Steps taken by Forest Dept

“As many as 1.55 lakh monkeys were sterilised since 2007, when the sterilisation of monkey started, which helped in stopping 4.66 lakh potential births. The population of monkeys which was 3,17,512 in 2004, reduced to 2,86,086 as per the Census conducted in 83 ranges spread over an area of 22,276 sq km in 2014 and further dropped to 2,07,614 in 2015. However, at present the population of monkey is 2.70 lakh and the plain and dry areas of Hamirpur, Mandi and Sirmaur districts are the worst hit. A massive awareness programme was launched for garbage management and over 3 lakh pamphlets were distributed, asking people not to feed monkeys. We have also written to the SMC to pick garbage twice a day and a proposal has been sent for increasing the remuneration for catching monkeys from Rs 700 to Rs 1,000 while the Wildlife institute has been asked to study the behavioral change and suggests solution to the problem of monkey menace and ways to take them to forests,” says PCCF Wildlife Dr Savita. 

Issue still persists

Declaring simians as vermin did not work as people were reluctant in shooting monkeys for religious or other reasons and only five monkeys, four in Sangrah in Sirmaur district and one in Kunihar in Solan district were culled.

Besides destroying the farm produce, monkeys have become a terror for people and there are many places where people, particularly the aged and women and children cannot venture out alone. In places like Shimla, monkeys snatching bags and eatables from pedestrians is a common sight.

The Shimla Municipal Corporation has put up boards instructing people not to offer anything to monkeys and not to stare at them. During the past four years, 1,134 cases of monkey attacks have been reported and a compensation of Rs 46.50 lakh was paid to victims.

In 2004, the feeding of monkeys in public places except temple premises was prohibited within Shimla municipal limits. Experts said this needs to be applied in other parts of the state as well. Besides destroying crops and biting people, the simians are known to contaminate drinking water in storage tanks, thereby transmit diseases.

While monkey menace remained a perpetual nuisance for farmers, the destruction of crops by wild and stray animals added to the woes of farmers and twin attacks forced farmers to abandon cultivation in several areas.

Stray cattle problem

However, the multipronged strategy to check wild/stray animal menace has started yielding results and the population of stray animals has decreased from 32,160 in 2012 to 27,352 in June 2019.

“The population of cattle has also declined from 21 lakh in 2012 to 18.6 lakh in 2017 and as such the percentage of abandoned cattle is just 2 per cent, but the visual impact of stray cattle is more as they keep on moving and are seen at different places,” says Deputy Director Animal Husbandry Dr Anupam Mittal. Moreover, in rural areas domestic cattle are set free for grazing in the forestland which is at times counted as stray cattle.

The state government has already set up “Gau Sewa Aayog” for preservation, conservation and welfare of cows in the state and regulating institutions such as gausadans, gaushalas, cow sanctuaries, Gau Vigyan Kendra and community cow rearing centres etc. and addresses the problem relating to abandoned cows.

The government had plans to open gaushaslas in every panchayat, but it was not feasible as panchayats had no land and now, four cow sanctuaries spread over an area of 200 to 300 bighas would come up in Thana Kalan in Una; Kheri in Hamirpur; Handa Kundi in Solan and Kotla Badog in Sirmaur.

The projects have been sanctioned and work to establish the sanctuaries are underway. Some shelters with fencing would be constructed and caretakers would be deployed. Plants for natural grazing of cattle would be grown besides external feeding.

The government started cattle registration in 2010 and 23 lakh cattle had been registered in the state so far and there are over 32,000 stray cattle and more than 3,226 panchayats and if every panchayat adopts 10 cattle and gausadans are made for cluster of three to four panchayats, the problem could be resolved but panchayats have to take the initiative.

The government has made a provision to give 15 per cent of income from temple for the construction of gausadans and a levy of Rs 1 per bottle of liquor has been imposed. As a consequence, the Excise and Taxation Department had released a sum of Rs 7.95 crore in 2018-19.

Microchip project shelved

The ambitious project of the state government to implant microchip UID in cattle to check stray animals was shelved due to financial constraints. The project envisaged building a database of all livestock and pet owners by identifying each animal with a unique GPS enabled microchip code with information relating to animal health, genetic, vaccination, production and reproduction. 

The project which started on a pilot basis was estimated to cost Rs 33.37 crore, but the government kept dragging its feet.

The experts are of the view that animal-human conflict is man-made and a holistic approach is needed to tackle the problem by creating conditions for animals and monkeys to return to their natural habitat in forests and sanctuaries.

Sanrakshan Yojana

The government launched an ambitious electric fencing scheme named “Mukhya Mantri Khet Sanrakshan Yojana” in 2016-17 to keep monkeys and other wild animals at bay. However, the farmers are not enthused and not coming forward to avail the benefits of the scheme in spite of huge subsidy. The government raised the subsidy for individual farmers and group of farmers to 80 per cent and 85 per cent, respectively, for installing solar energy flow fence system but in spite of it, the farmers found the scheme expensive and unaffordable.

The government recently included the provision of barbed wires/ channel link/composite wires and provided 50 per cent subsidy under ‘Mukhya Mantri Khet Sanrakshan Yojana’.

Under this scheme, a provision of 50 per cent subsidy for barbed wires/ channel link and 70 per cent for composite fences have been made to help farmers in protecting their crops and a budget provision of Rs 35 crore has been made for financial year 2019-20 under this scheme, says  Principal Secretary Agriculture, Onkar Chand Sharma.

He said farmers would continue to get 80 per cent subsidy in individual case and 85 per cent in group for installing solar energy flow fence system. The farmers will be given 80 per cent subsidy to install solar powered fencing. He said the department had shortlisted 27 efficient service provider companies for solar powered fencing and the beneficiary can voluntarily choose one of these companies.

Onkar Chand Sharma said the committee constituted by the Agriculture Department would carry out inspection and submit other necessary information before providing financial assistance to the beneficiary under scheme. He said the budget provision of Rs 35 crore had been made for financial year 2019-20 under this scheme.