Majority of the rat-related complaints involved housing estates. The National Enviroment Agency is helping town councils to run their own rat eradication programmes.
Nur Afifah Ariffin, Channel NewsAsia 22 Jun 15;
SINGAPORE: Last December, a hill near Bukit Batok MRT station came under scrutiny for being overrun with hundreds of rats. But the "tail" does not end there. For the whole of last year, the National Environment Agency (NEA) received about 4,000 complaints about rats, a 25 per cent jump from 2013. Close to 90 per cent of rat burrows were detected in housing estates, which is outside the agency's purview.
NEA has been helping town councils with a rat infestation problem, like in Chua Chu Kang, which saw a spike in rodent population in June last year. It prompted the Town Council to initiate a programme called "Rat Attack" with NEA in November.
MP for Chua Chu Kang GRC Zaqy Mohamad said: "On the first scan, we had 907 active burrows. And by January, two months later, we were down to 500 burrows. By March, we were down to about 100 burrows. So we have seen a 90 per cent drop in the number of rat burrows as a result of this programme. So today we're in maintenance mode."
Separately, the NEA has its own islandwide rat surveillance programme. The agency recently called a tender to engage a pest control operator to continue the programme for the next two years, as the existing contract will expire at the end of July. This is so that the authorities can react quickly should a rat infestation problem occurs.
Mr Zaqy added: "In terms of surveillance, that would complement a large part of the proactive portion of the Rat Attack programme. This may also encompass areas that are not under Town Council management.
“Sometimes, we do have rat situation in those areas and we do have to work with NEA for those. So, in a certain sense, it adds a layer of surveillance to help us in our proactive search in our rats burrows, if done well and correctly."
One pest control operator Channel NewsAsia spoke with said the community must do its part to keep the rat population under control.
"We need parties that are concerned, whether they are service providers, waste management, or maybe food outlets - to do their part, so that we can draw out the protocols to ensure that our programme is successful," said PestBusters CEO Thomas Fernandez.
“It is not just about the tendering and going according to the scope of work that they ask us to do. It could be deeper than that. We require the community at large to understand our rat control programme and the surveillance."
NEA said the key to managing rat infestation is to remove food sources.
- CNA/xk
