HC seeks status report on dog, monkey menace

Shimla: The Himachal Pradesh high court has directed the municipal corporation, Shimla, and the forest department to indicate the status on controlling the monkey and dog menace in the state in consultation with the Animal Welfare Board and the colleges of veterinary and animal sciences situated within Himachal.
The status report in this regard should be filed by the next date of hearing on Aug 28, the court directed.
The directions were passed by a division bench of the high court comprising Chief Justice M S Ramachandra and Justice Satyen Vaidya on Friday.
The high court in August last year had directed the Animal Welfare Board to provide suggestions to Himachal Pradesh regarding control of monkey menace and also the stray dog menace as these issues had been lingering on for a long time, causing hardships to the citizens of the state.
Following the directions, the deputy solicitor general of India had placed on record the guidelines for mitigating human-rhesus macaque conflict. The guidelines were framed by the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change and the same were taken on record.
The counsel for the Shimla MC had also placed on record a Sept 6, 2023 office order constituting a committee of experts from the department of Dr G C Negi College of Veterinary & Animal Sciences and Chaudhary Sarwan Kumar Himachal Pradesh Krishi Vishvavidyalaya, Palampur, for controlling the monkey and stray dog menace.
During the course of hearing, the advocate general had also placed on record a report received from Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams at Tirumala in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, indicating the steps that they had followed to control monkey menace in the temple town.
The court believed that Shimla MC and the state forest department would coordinate with each other, take note of material available and material which might be supplied to it in the form of advice by the university, and take effective steps to control the monkey and dog menace as early as possible.