The Jakarta provincial government wants its citizens to get involved in reducing the population of rats in the capital by offering an incentive.
Vice Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat said the administration is willing to reward citizens Rp 20,000 for every rat they catch as part of a newly launched Rat Extermination Campaign.
“Just round them up (the rats), later district heads will get involved. Just count the number of rats and we’ll pay accordingly,” he said, as quoted by Kompas today.
Djarot did not specify whether the rats have to be dead or alive. We’re assuming it doesn’t really matter, because he said he plans for them to be buried anyway so that they turn into compost.
According to Djarot, rat infestations in Jakarta have been on the rise, particularly in densely populated settlements. He said that filthy rodents have been spreading disease to many of the city’s small children.
Hopefully the government has thought out this program very carefully – historically it has been proven that similar programs have actually had adverse effects, as in the case of a program which paid people to kill rats in Hanoi in the early 1900s and a program which paid people to kill poisonous snakes in Delhi – both programs led to people breeding the pests for profit.
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