HYDERABAD: Residents living around forest areas in erstwhile Adilabad district can finally bid adieu to their age-old monkey problem, as the State government has constructed Telangana’s first Monkey Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre at Chincholi in Nirmal district.
The centre, which comes under the Kawal Tiger Reserve circle, is set to be inaugurated on Sunday by Forest Minister A Indrakaran Reddy.
The rehab facility has been built at a cost of Rs 2.25 crore, in a bid to keep the monkey population in check.
Monkeys that venture into human habitations would be captured by gram panchayats/municipalities and would be transported to the centre by the Forest Department for sterilisation.
A press release issued by the Forest Department on Saturday said that the monkeys brought to the centre would be kept there for a week so that they get acclimatised to the environment, and would later be sterilised surgically.
After the surgery, they would be placed under observation. They would be released into the wild only after being deemed fit.
The rescue centre would also undertake the treatment and rehabilitation of injured monkeys.
The centre has veterinary staff, assistants, an operation theatre, laboratory, cages specially designed for monkeys, apart from the necessary medical equipment and facilities.
A dormitory has also been built to house the medical staff.
These professionals underwent training in Himachal Pradesh, as the State has been taking up sterilisation of monkeys for the past several years.
As a consequence of rising monkey population and declining forest cover, many instances of monkey-human conflicts are being reported in Nirmal and other parts of Telangana.
Farmers, for years now, have been complaining of crop losses caused by monkeys, and in a few cases, of monkeys attacking humans.
According to the Forest Department’s press release, shortly after the formation of Telangana State, Indrakaran Reddy, along with district administration officials, had met residents of various villages, as part of the TRS government’s ‘Mana Vooru Mana Pranalika’ programme to study problems at the village-level.
One of the major concerns raised by the villagers was the persistent monkey menace.
As a result, in May 2016, the Forest Department issued orders for the construction of the rehab centre in Nirmal as a pilot project, and the very next year, foundation stone for the same was laid by the Forest Minister.
The state government has also been planting saplings of many wild fruit trees as part of its Telangana ku Haritha Haaram afforestation scheme, so that monkeys remain inside forests and do not venture into human habitations in search of food.