While the rest of the country was still trying to come to terms with the PNB Scam, Maharastra Mantralaya was dealing with a different and a rather pressing issue. The state secretariat had been infested with rats. The gravity of the situation was such that the General Administration Department (GAD) of the Maharashtra government had to hire an external agency to get rid of the pesky rodents.
As it turns out, the company, which the Maharashtra government hired, did a pretty good job at driving away the rats from the Mantralaya. Apparently, it managed to kill 3.19 lakh rats in just a week!
If you are stunned by the number of rats that had been running rampant in the state assembly for long, then you are not alone. In a startling revelation in the Maharastra state assembly, senior BJP leader Eknath Khadse revealed that the agency that the Maharastra government had hired to get rid of its rodent problem had managed to kill 3,19,400 rats within seven days.
If these claims were true, it would have to kill 45,628.57 rats a day which would mean killing 31.68 rats every minute. The weight of the dead rats would be around 9,125.71 kg and it would require a truck to carry the dead rodents and get them disposed of. “Strangely, nobody in the Mantralaya has seen this exercise being conducted,” Khadse pointed out in the state assembly, The Indian Express reported.
“Can there be so many rats in Mantralaya? And would it be ever possible to execute such an exercise within seven days,” he questioned.
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The Rat-Scam
Speaking during the debate on budgetary demands, Khadse said that the GAD issued a work order to the company based on a survey which said that there were 3,19,400 rats in the Mantralaya. The company was given six months time to get rid of the rodents which was later reduced to two months. But the company managed to eliminate all the rats in just seven days.
Interestingly, GAD is headed by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.
The former minister also pointed out that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation had killed six lakh rats in Mumbai in two years, but the company which was hired by the government to kill rats in Mantralaya killed over 3 lakh rodents in just a week.
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Referring to the death of farmer Dharma Patil, Khadse alleged that he died of drinking the poison which was brought to the Mantralaya for killing rats. “One wonders where he got the poison if any suspicious chemicals are not allowed inside the building. He got hold of the chemical from the stock procured to kill the rats,” he wondered, the Hindustan Times reported.
Speaking in the house, Khadse said that there was a large-scale scam involved in the process of issuing the tender and he demanded that a probe should be conducted into the matter.
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Meanwhile, responding to the allegations, Minister of State for GAD, Madan Yerawar said that the government would probe the matter and ascertain facts about the tender process.
