It costs Karnataka Rs 650 to catch a rat, CM Siddaramaiah tells legislative council

The spacious lawns outside the buildings have thousands of burrows that house rodents, mice and bandicoots.

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Karnataka government has spent close to Rs 19.5 lakh in the last five years to make the city’s government offices rodent free.

The New Indian Express reported on Saturday that about Rs 650 was being spent per rat by the state government to make these offices in the city rodent-free.

The spacious lawns outside Vidhana Soudha, Vikasa Soudha, Vishveshwaraiah Towers and multi-storeyed building located on Ambedkar Veedhi, have thousands of burrows that house rodents, mice and bandicoots.

TNIE quoted a clerk saying, “Sometimes we bring rat catching bones. But nothing helps. These rodents bite computer and Internet wires. It affects our day-to-day work.”

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in a reply to JD(S) MLC Patel Shivaram’s question in the Legislative Council said that the state in the last five years has given the contract of catching rats to a private agency to which it has paid Rs 19.34 lakh so far to catch rodents. These agencies catch about 50 rodents every month.

A senior officer from the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (DPAR) of Karnataka said they have handed over the task of catching bandicoots and rodents from the buildings to Sri Ganga Facility and Management. Every building is allotted a person, who visits the buildings every day.

“They catch rodents using traps and kill them using poison. The poison is kept during holidays. The smell of rat poison is unbearable. Traps are kept on a regular basis,” he explained.

This is an aggregated report from The New Indian Express.