Stray pig menace haunts Kavali residents again

Nellore: Kavali town is still facing pig menace even though the civic officials have taken stringent measures in last August shooting hundreds of animals on the spot. Soon after the involvement of local politicos, who mounted pressure on the officials, they kept quiet for some time and now swine population has increased in number.

Freshly, a pig attacked a kid on Wednesday in Tufan Nagar in the town in which a 3-year-old received severe injuries when a pig with its children was moving in the area. The boy was shifted to Nellore for better medical treatment. The animal attacked the boy and dragged up to 100 metres distance and local population rescued him from the furious swine population.  

Kavali civic body officials killed more than 150-200 animals during August last. Civic authorities noticed that a big racket has been working in the divisional headquarters and the survey had revealed more than 154 people belonging to 119 families were relying on the pig rearing activity with the support of alleged team of politicians. Pig rearing families also approached the High Court expressing objection on the activities of the civic body filing four different cases. So, the efforts were failed due to technical reasons.

Civic officials approached the legal experts and got a point that the High Court had delivered a verdict in connection with a case filed in Guntur Municipal Corporation in 1986 regarding the same problem.

The High Court directed the municipal body of Guntur that pigs should be kept in a separate place away from the city areas allocating a specific place for their rearing. The animals should not visit dwelling areas of the place. The pigs too should be provided licences from the civic body and the swine population should have tags like stray dogs indicating their ownership.

Officials received a complaint that pigs attacked an aged woman in the town and officials engaged people for killing the population in which 150 animals were killed within 3 days giving a jolt to the rearing mafia. Now, these pig rearing families, who conspired with local influential people started mounting pressure on the officials and consequently animal population again increased due to no action. 

“The problem has to be addressed strictly in the city as the rearing activity has been unabated for many decades where animals move only in dwelling places. If the civic body fails to curb the practice, there would be no peaceful environs for the town population,” said a retired employee from Indira Nagar area.