Residents hope dog sterilisation project will yield results in city

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Amritsar, April 24

With the government announcing that 20,000 stray dogs roaming in the municipal limits of Amritsar would be sterilised at an estimated cost of Rs 3.19 crore, most residents here have welcomed the step saying it was only an exercise that was long overdue.

The stray menace had not only resulted in dog bite cases but also snuffed out lives. The Health Department does provide free of cost anti-rabies vaccines but a final solution to the problem lies in controlling the stray dog population. However, the escalating cost of sterilisation and increasing number of canines only add to the problem.

Harmanpreet Singh, a local resident, said though the government announced to sterilise 20,000 dogs, their actual number has grown manifold in the absence of any durable measures.

Sterilisation of dogs and their census are a part of the Amritsar Municipal Corporation (AMC) saga. These projects were announced several times in the past but most of them were shelved.

In January 2016, the AMC initiated the sterilisation of dogs but the drive was soon stopped due to lack of funds. To mobilise funds, three month later, the AMC initiated an ambitious drive for registration of pet dogs to collect money. Earnings from the registration of pet dogs was supposed to fund the sterilisation of stray dogs. The project failed to take off.

Years later, it was between August 2021 to April 2022 that the AMC sterilised more than 4,300 dogs at the Animal Birth Control (ABC) Centre. The then veterinary officials had estimated that there were more than 55,000 dogs in the city and their number was rapidly increasing.

Of late, the dog sterilisation project had been in limbo for nearly two years as the contract with the private firm supposed to undertake the drive was not revived.