Monkey business: Indian government hires 40 people to 'disguise themselves as langurs'

New hires employed to imitate the langur monkey’s noises and scare them out of Parliament

The Indian government has hired 40 people to 'disguise themselves as langurs', the type of monkey pictured here. (Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

The Indian government has revealed it is tackling its issue with monkeys overrunning parliament by hiring 40 people to "disguise themselves as langurs".

The issue has arisen from a pest situation presented by stray dogs and rhesus macaque monkeys in and around Parliament House in New Delhi, which has prompted the government to take hold of the situation.

For the past year, the homes of officials have been guarded by groups of men who bark and whoop to imitate the noises of the rhesus macaque’s natural enemy, the langur monkey, in order to scare off the pests, according to the Wall Street Journal.

But now the government needs to step up its efforts. The monkey issues have been growing, which led politician Ambeth Rajan to ask what was being done about the monkey and dog menace, "particularly inside and around the area of Parliament House".

On Wednesday the government announced in a statement that it is: "Scaring the monkeys away by trained persons who disguise themselves as langurs".

"New Delhi Municipal Corporation has hired forty young persons for this purpose."

While the method may sound laughable, it has been proven to work – and the meaning of "disguised" has been lost in translation.

The 40 new hires are not expected to dress as langurs, simply to imitate the noises of the monkeys in the same way that officials' homes have been guarded over the past year.

The new employees will also be equipped with rubber bullet guns to help scare the monkeys away, while a new team of dog catchers have been hired to scour Parliament House and its grounds twice a week to catch any unimmunised and unsterilized stray dogs.