The city’s civic body started a dedicated helpline to tackle monkey menace in the city on Wednesday.
The civic body has started ‘1533’, a toll-free helpline number where the residents can complain about monkey and other animal menace to the civic body. This comes a month after the High Court of Karnataka, on June 7, hearing a PIL petition filed by B.S. Radhanandan, a city-based advocate, issued directions to evolve a scheme to protect residents of Bengaluru from the menace of monkeys. The court had also directed authorities to ensure that monkeys were driven back to their natural habitats in a humane way.
Pointing out that several residential localities in the city are experiencing frequent attacks by groups of monkeys, which come in search of food, the petitioner had said that residents and their welfare associations were unable to get help from civic authorities to overcome this menace but were forced to seek help of unauthorised persons for trapping these monkeys.
The petitioner had sought directions to the authorities, on the lines of the Delhi High Court’s directions, to evolve a mechanism to protect residents from the monkey menace on the one hand and to take care of monkeys as per the law.
“Following the directions of the court, the BBMP has started the helpline and also the people can complain about any animal related menace on the ‘Namma Bengaluru Mobile app,” BBMP said in a release.
