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National Thai Elephant Day falls on March 13 each year. Bangkok has faced a chronic problem with roaming elephants for years.

Under the Smiling Elephant project, the BMA will embed a microchip under the skin of each elephant whose mahout does not have written permission to bring the beast into the city. Shelter will be provided until the elephant can be sent back home, Deputy Governor Teerachon Manomaiphibul said after a meeting with relevant agencies.

Friends of the Asian Elephant Foundation secretary-general Soraida Salwala said about 200 elephants could now be found in the mean streets of Bangkok, begging passers-by to buy bags of food from their mahouts to feed them. The elephants risk accident and illness by staying in Bangkok.

"We'll rush to survey the exact number of begging elephants going around the city before embedding some of them with microchips. The BMA will collaborate with military organisations with bases in Bangkok and the State Railway of Thailand to provide areas for them and their mahouts to stay before being sent back home," Teerachon said.

A source said elephants' owners earned a combined Bt10 million a year by having the beasts beg in the streets, while mahouts received hundreds of thousands of baht. The source believes both national and local politicians benefit from the elephant problem.