Over 3 lakh rats killed in Mantralaya in a week!
Khadse, ‘Pied Piper of Mantralaya’, exposes rat scam
Eknath Khadse, the former revenue minister, who was compelled to resign from the BJP government, has been on a roll since the budgetary session began. From taking on the government, Khadse has now turned to exposing a rat scam – under which a company was given a contract to kill 319,400 rats in the Mantralaya.
Interestingly, the contract issued by the General Administration Department was to be executed in six months. But the mammoth task was accomplished in a mere seven days, it is claimed.
What makes it even more intriguing is that the BMC had taken two years to kill six lakh rats in the city, Khadse points out.
No wonder, Khadse is being described as the ‘Pied Piper’ of Mantralaya, who exposed the scam. In all seriousness, the BJP leader had sought information on the rat menace in the Mantralaya -– the seat of the state government --under the RTI.
The reply to his query makes astounding reading. For the statistically minded, “a total of 319,476 mice were killed in the Mantralaya between May 3 and May10, 2016. This works out to 45,620.57 mice daily; in other words, every minute 31.68 mice were killed.”
The RTI query elicited even a more interesting reply about the total weight of the mice killed on a daily basis. “The total weight of the daily rat booty was 9125.71 kg, which amounts to 9.125 tonnes.” So, approximately a truck full of dead mice is said to have left the Mantralaya.
Interestingly, the RTI reply does not reveal if the company had taken previous permission from the GAD and the Home department to bring in rat poison.
There is also no mention of whether the mice were buried, cremated or what happened to the rodents that were killed.
"It is surprising that this company killed over three lakh rats in just seven days while the BMC took two years to kill six lakh rats. There is a discrepancy in the claim made by the company," he said. Khadse said that the government should felicitate the officials for making such tall claims. “The officials concerned, mainly Pradnya Walke, Ashok Bagul and Reshma Chavan, should be given a special award for killing the mice,” said Khadse with a smirk.
While speaking to the Free Press Journal, Khadse said, “It is important to know whether the company had the license to kill the rats and the rodents.”
He added, “It would have been cheaper to rear cats instead. It would have made more sense to rear cats to kill these mice, rather than hiring a truck to ferry them to the nearest incinerator,” said Khadse.