Pioneer News Service
Daltonganj
The town Daltonganj has two things. One rats. The other snakes. There is a variety of snake called rat snake, locally known as Dhamin.
People live with caution in the event of snakes found slithering in the room or verandah of the house. However before rats residents are pretty helpless. Its infestation is such that no one knows where rats will not be around. People living on the bank of the river Koyel are ‘plagued’ with rats!
Come the holy month of Sawan, the rat issue becomes all the more intense and acute. Sources said people living away from the river, bring in their rat traps with one rat minimum inside, to the river bank where the rodent is released.
They do this as in Sawan rodents are not killed like snakes. These rats through plumbings and toilets enter the household harming people living on the bank of the river.
A resident of Nawa Toli Dolly a housewife told this correspondent “Rats are our unwelcome guest these days. We are helpless. There is no night that we sleep goes without the mischief of the rats.”
Rats chew and shred upholstery and stored textiles causing loss to the households. Another resident Munna who runs a nursery shop in Nawa Toli barely 30 yards of the river Koyel said “Rats destroy our saplings. It makes long burrows.”
There is a strong misconception about rat and river. People who bring rats near the river have a wrong notion that rats will enter water and die.
Rats don’t die in water. These are swimmers and navigate water for days. They even hold breath for 3 minutes in water to retain energy to wade through the water said a wildlife activist.
Dr R K Ranjan a physician in the MMCH Daltonganj said “Rat bite is dangerous. It calls for the same dose of anti rabies vaccine like that in the case of dog bite.” Unlike Ranchi and Jamshedpur Palamu district has no pest control services.
There is no organisation here for rodent management in Palamu. People by and large do cockroach treatment themselves but for rats there is nothing except bear the rat pain.
