The state government on Friday admitted in the Assembly that it has failed in fighting the nilgai menace, causing enormous harm to the farmers in a large number of villages of Gujarat. Answering a question from BJP MLA Ambalal Rohit from Sojitra on the government's action to stop nilgais from entering agricultural fields and destroying standing crop, senior Cabinet minister Mangubhai Patel said, "All our efforts have failed.' Patel, who heads the state forest, environment and tribal development departments, said, "The matter was discussed threadbare by Chief Minister Narendra Modi with four ministers. As many as 1,545 village sarpanches were given the right to do away with blue bulls (nilgais) under specific laws. Steps were taken to sterilize the nilgais, provide 50 per cent subsidy to farmers to fence their farms, and educate farmers to firecrackers to push away the animal from fields.' However, Patel, who is an ethnic tribal from south Gujarat, sounded helpless in the House, saying, "None of these steps has actually been able to stop the menace. Though sarpanches were given the right to do away with the nilgais under the Wild Life Act, only 33 were killed. Nilgais are extremely quick in running away and are very difficult to spot.' Even when Patel asked the legislators to come up with suggestions on how to fight the problem, a large number of MLAs cutting across party lines asked the government to take effective steps. Realizing the problem's gravity, speaker Ashok Bhatt intervened to call a special meeting on blue bull. Officials said, as of today, there are more than one lakh nilgais.