PGI welcomes 'special guests'

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">CHANDIGARH: PGI is playing host to two very special guests who have been brought down from Delhi to provide relief to terrorised doctors and harried patients.<br /><br />At a loss to come to terms with the monkey menace plaguing the institute, the authorities are now trying out a novel experiment to keep the simians at bay.Two male langurs have been specially brought from the Capital along with their trainer to shoo away monkeys camping at the PGI campus.<br /><br />The langurs are being kept at ''strategic'' locations in the campus where battalions of monkeys are found camping. <br /><br />Speaking to <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">The Times of India</span>, a senior PGI administration official said, "Langur therapy has worked successfully at other places plagued by monkeys including the Parliament House and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences campus. The stature and size of langurs generates fear in the minds of monkeys as they feel threatened by their presence and run for cover."<br /><br />PGI has brought the langurs for about a month. "The langurs have been brought down on an experimental basis for a month. If the experiment proves successful, we can think of bringing more langurs to end the monkey menace. We are monitoring the efficacy of the method to assess whether over a period of time the langurs are able to terrorise the monkeys and drive them out of the campus," he said. <br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal"><br />As per plans, the langurs would be taken around the campus on a bicycle. They were taken to the Oral Health Sciences centre on Tuesday to ward off the monkeys stationed nearby. Monkeys have been giving sleepless nights to the PGI authorities for long. <br /><br />"Monkeys are a big headache and there is no way in sight by which we can put an end to the menace. Not only do they enter doctors hostels or offices and decamp with official documents or even run away with clothes left for drying in the hangars, they even enter the wards at times and break the covers placed on the overhead water tanks," notes a senior doctor.<br /><br />He adds, "The basic problem lies with the scores of patients and their attendants who visit the campus everyday. While on the one hand monkeys multiply very fast, even in the past when we have left them in the forests away from the campus, they come back as they are assured of abundant food supply. Patients and their attendants are in the habit of giving food to the monkeys which draws monkeys close to places where there are a lot of visitors."<br /><br />Prior to the President’s visit last year when he interacted with school children, PGI’s Public Relations Department had put up posters all over the institute doling out tips as to what should be done to avoid being attacked by monkeys. </div> </div>