In UP, rats lay siege to Akhilesh office
Though he is now adept at dealing with attacks from the opposition, UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav does not know how to deal with this one.
The chief minister’s office on the fifth floor of the Lal Bahadur Shastri Bhavan (Sachivalaya Annexe) has been under siege by rats and that too, of all species and sizes.
“The rats are chewing up files, stationery and even the wires of computers. They scoot from one end of the room to another and are turning increasingly fearless. We have tried keeping rat traps but nothing seems to work,” said a senior official at the CM secretariat.
A “special rodent eradication plan” has now been worked out with the state government directing the maintenance division of the Public Works Department (PWD) to engage an agency to make the chief minister’s office a rat-free zone.
“The problem is that most people and agencies do not want to use rat poison because the rat is considered the vehicle of Lord Ganesha and people are averse to poisoning it. The problem seems to have no solution at all at the moment,” the official said. The rat attack, interestingly, is not restricted to the chief minister’s office alone. Other offices in the Lal Bahadur Shastri Bhavan, particularly, the media centre on the ground floor, is also beset with rats of all sizes. Other buildings of the state secretariat, including the Vidhan Bhavan, Sachiv Bhavan, Bahukhandi Bhavan, Naveen Bhavan, Adhikari Bhavan and Bapu Bhavan too have been attacked by the rat menace.
A senior officer in the maintenance department, however, says that lack of cleanliness in the buildings is a major cause for the spurt in rat population. “People, from officers to peons, tend to throw half-eaten food in the bins and this attracts rats and other insects too. In fact, the monkey population around the chief minister’s secretariat is also growing rapidly and we have had cases where monkeys have been damaging vehicles by jumping on them. We have asked the concerned officials not to throw food in the bins but no one seems bothered,” he said. As per a government order issued last week, the chief management officer has been directed to monitor the work of the executing agency every month.
A sum of `30,800 per month (`1.85 lakh for six months) has been allocated for the purpose and the GO says that the executing agency will carry out work in an eco-friendly manner. The agency will have to carry out work in accordance with the provisions of Central Insecticide Act, 1968.
Entry identity cards will be given to those carrying out the rodent control work in these high-security buildings after police verification.
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