Samikhsya Bureau
Although in one of his television address the Prime Minister Narendra Modi had mentioned about the plights of the animals and urged the need for the care.
Even in several of his television addresses the chief minister of Odisha, perhaps, has not mentioned about the state of hunger these animals in the out.
What, in fact, has exacerbated the problem of the animals is the closure of all the hotels, restaurants, road-side ‘dhabas’ and slew of eateries including tea shops.
There is nothing wrong to mention here that all the stray animals solely feed on the surplus and dumps from the above places even including cattle to a great extent.
Besides that, In Bhubaneswar and Puri we have a huge number of monkeys and langurs at tourist locations and temple premises and the visitors normally are the real succour for them to get their days’ diet. One can say that, they have become, more or less, semi-domesticated and thrive on offers.
In Puri temple, where there are roughly two to three hundred monkeys are now an exasperated lot. Now there being a ban on the ‘darshan’ the monkeys have started coming out of the temple premises entering into residential areas in search of food.
Hunger knows no bounds and their surge into the households is not taken with a sport by all which lead to the monkeys indulging in forceful activities.
But, in case of the lungoors in places like Khandagiri-Udaygiri, where their population ranges between 300 to 350, are in real problem after the ban on tourists’ visit.
It was learnt that, some locals volunteer to give some food to the ones in Puri but that is not enough. Even, the fate of the stary bulls and cows on the Grand road of Puri can be imagined.
With the mercury on the rise, the authorities cannot afford to leave all the Samaritan acts for the citizens and let the animals blister around gasping for food and water.
It is time that the Centre and the state pitched for their cause and create volunteer groups(under the desired limitations of the lockdown) to reach out to these speechless ones those who are part of the symbiosis.
Moreover, organisations like People For Animal(PFA) and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals ( PETA) rise to the occasion to help the animals.
Although the PFA has engaged some to feed the animals in distress but that has turned to be a fig-leaf one looking at the enormity of the challenge.
