Mumbai : The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) killed 1.18 lakh rats in Mumbai in the past 6 months, since January this year, according to official sources. However, the opposition has accused the BMC of not doing enough to end the rat menace in the city, especially since cases of the deadly leptospirosis disease, which is caused through contact with flood water contaminated with an infected rat’s urine, are on the rise.
The BMC had 3.3 lakh rats killed between April 2013 and March 2014 and 1.4 lakh rats between March 2014 and December 2014.
The civic body is supposed to employ 44 workers to kill rats, but currently there are only 31 on the civic body’s payroll. Moreover, the only incentive given to these workers to kill rats is their daily wage. If these workers do not kill 30 rats in one night and produce them before the civic body as proof, they are not paid their wages for the day, according to Devendra Amberkar, the leader of the opposition in the BMC.
Amberkar said, “We are going to propose that these rat killers be paid Rs 15 or 20 per rat that they kill as incentive to work harder. We will submit this proposal to the standing committee for their approval. We also demand that the civic body hire the remaining staff before the monsoon ends to increase the efficiency of the department.”