Farmers in Dhading on Wednesday staged demonstrations outside the Bagmati Provincial Assembly Hall in Hetauda against the government’s lack of measures to help eradicate ‘monkey terror’.

Some 150 farmers from Nilkantha Municipality, and Siddhalek and Jwalamukhi rural municipalities had reached the Hetauda-based government office to stage protests.

The agitated farmers complained that the government neither allocated budget nor planned out any preventive measures to help contain the problem of monkeys destroying their crops.

Unable to protect their crops from the animals, villagers are on the verge of migration, said Nawaraj Dawadi, a farmer from Nilkantha. “Since our cries for a long-term solution have been falling on deaf ears, we have come to the provincial headquarters to make ourselves heard.”

Following the protests, Bagmati Chief Minister Shalikram Jamkattel had called the farmers for a discussion. The farmers don’t trust that they will be given an immediate solution as nothing has been done to solve the problem so far.

The ‘monkey terror’ isn’t a problem only in Dhading though. It has become a serious headache for farmers across the country. Local units in several districts have adopted various measures to control the damage of crops by the mischievous animals but their initiatives have not become effective.