All you need to do is dial a helpline (9871963535) and dedicated snake trappers will be at your doorstep to help you.

Wildlife SOS (WSOS), run by a group of nature lovers, has been serving the denizens for the past 13 years.

It claims to be doing a two-pronged rescue act – prevents people from snake bites and takes out the reptile to the wild, their safe fiefdom.

A 24-hour reptile rescue centre is functioning at a makeshift office at Defence Colony in New Delhi.

There are four teams in Delhi with seven experts in catching snakes.

Regular phone calls on snakes number around four a day but they go up to eight during the monsoon.

Karthik Satyanarayan co-founded the WSOS in 1995 along with Geeta Seshamani.

Now, as he looks back, he says experts at its units in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Delhi have rescued hundreds of snakes over the years.

"As a child, I was compassionate to birds and animals and when I grew up I took it up as a mission. We are working in collaboration with forest and wildlife departments," Satyanarayan said.

"I don't ascribe any religious tone to my love for snakes. They are god's creation and part of nature. I am just chipping in my bit to preserve the nature. People kill them mistaking them as dangerous."

34-year-old Satyanarayan, who runs a solar electrical company, said "snakes ante-date men. They have been crawling on this planet even in Jurassic age".

As part of rehabilitating snake charmers, WSOS has engaged 25 'joginaths' (traditional charmers) in the group.

The group favours extraction of venom but only if it is for medicinal use. "Abuse of venom for business and as drugs cannot be accepted," he said.

But Satyanarayan said his mission is facing fund crunch as "beneficiaries" hesitate to donate.

"Once we catch a snake, we need to take it to the wild. It involves travelling expense. In most of the cases, we don't get even 20 per cent of the expense. Many give us meager amounts of Rs 10 or Rs 50, when the whole process entails Rs 200 or more."

Snakes caught from Delhi are often taken to Kalesar forest in Haryana.

Citing his own example he said "though I am not a trained snake handler, not even once I was bitten by a snake. It all depends on the knack and care in handling them".

Sheshmani, also a senior reader at Gargi College said, the society was founded in response to the "increasing need to rescue the urban wild life. The fast-pace urbanisation has seen man intruding into the natural habitats of animals.

"Though we develop parks as a substitute to natural forests, the trees there don't suit birds to build nests nor bear fruits that serve to the taste of animals," she said.

Stressing on careful handling of snakes Nitin Sorohi, a field worker with WSOS, said "I have never seen a snake getting injured during the rescue operation."