NMC to conduct special drive for controlling pig menace

Nellore: Despite specific directions from the high court on pig menace in urban conglomerations, the civic body is showing mercy on the pig-rearing mafia in the city limits. Though thousands of pigs staying in residential areas and bothering the city population, especially in slum areas, posing a threat to the health of children and others, there has been no stringent action from the civic body.

The reason is simple, pig rearing requires no extra cost as they rely on houses, garbage heaps, side drains and other dirty places in the city limits and people never find owners of the pigs close to the residential areas controlling them.

So, the pig-rearing mafia always keep themselves behind the screen watching developments and sometimes attack the dwellers as and when they find difficulty in the existence of their animals. Normally, the civic bodies conduct a survey on the presence of the pig population and their owners and call them for meetings whenever child-related diseases spread in the city and warn them to keep the animal population to drive out of the city. But this is a routine activity every year and the number of pig population is increasing in all slums and outskirts without any control.

All pigs should have licence from the civic body like pet dogs being reared by the city population and should be vaccinated from time to time. These animals should have tags like stray dogs indicating their possession and civic authorities can take any legal action if they move outside the set boundaries. Officials can even eliminate them mercilessly for safeguarding public health if found moving in public places. But these guidelines are only on paper.

Guntur Municipal Corporation approached the High Court in 1986 for clarification on the elimination of pig population in dwelling places. The court directed the civic body to keep pigs in a separate place away from city area for their rearing. The rearing should be confined to domestic place or locality of rearing people, and they should not visit dwelling areas.

Recently, a pig tried to kill a kid in the Venkateswara Puram area of Nellore municipal corporation limits. There are many such instances that occurred earlier in Vengala Rao Nagar, Kissan Nagar, Buja Buja Nellore, Gandhi Nagar, Vedayapalem and Podalakur Road areas.

Kavali municipality faced a similar problem where they killed more than 150 animals within 3 days giving ample warnings to the owners in 2021. Speaking on pig menace, Nellore Municipal Commissioner D Haritha said the district administration has directed the officials to drive away pigs from the city areas to the assigned places. She also instructed the officials to conduct a special drive for controlling the pig menace.