Wild animals cause Rs 375 cr agricultural loss

Shimla, Oct 4: Wild animals, especially monkeys, pigs and birds, cause an estimated loss of Rs 375 crore to agricultural produce and horticulture in Himachal Pradesh every year, an NGO has said.

Addressing a press conference here yesterday, Himachal Gyan Vigyan Samiti (HGVS) President Kuldeep Singh Tanwar said the financial loss was besides the deleterious effects on the forest cover.

With a view to attract the Centre's attention towards the plight of the farmers of the state, the HGVS is organising a state level rally here on October nine, he said.

Mr Tanwar said the rally would call upon the Centre to initiate steps to check the rising population of the wild animals besides revoking the ban on the export of monkeys from the country.

The HGVS will also submitted memorandums to Wildlife Project Officer, Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) and environment ministeries of the State and Centre on October four, six, and nine respectively under the ''protect farms campaign'', he said.

He said in the absence of adequate response from the Centre, farmers from all over the state would protest outside the Parliament at Delhi next year and the organisation's activists would undertake a door-to-door campaign in the rural areas to prepare them for the exercise.

Expressing concern over the increase in the number of monkeys in the state, he said, their numbers had swelled to 3.17 lakh in 2004 from 60,000 in 1980.

Due to shrinking forests and lack of food in the reserve areas, the monkeys were shifting close to human habitations, he said, adding that there was one monkey per 17 people in the state.

UNI