New norms for dog sterilisation in Chandigarh

Tribune News Service

Sandeep Rana

Chandigarh, March 27

Amid the rising cases of stray dog bite and doubts over the municipal corporation’s claims on dog sterilisation, the civic body is set to entirely change its strategy by taking new steps, including informing local residents before carrying out dog-catching and sector-wise sterilisation drives.

An animal complaint cell at Animal Birth Control Centre (ABCC) has been planned for receiving complaints of bites by street dogs suspected to be suffering from rabies. A dedicated helpline is also on the cards.

Before catching street dogs for sterilisation and immunisation in a locality, the civic body will inform local residents through public notices, announcements or banners. These dogs will later be released in the same area.

Dogs from only one area will be brought to the centre at a time. Collars carrying numbers will be put on these dogs upon their arrival at the centre. These collars will help maintain record to ensure that each dogs are released in the same area from where these were captured.

A ‘V’-shaped notch will be made on the right ear of each dog during sterilisation surgery. Such clipping of the ear will help in the identification of sterilised dogs. The Centre notified many such norms this month and the corporation is going to adhere to these.

“These norms will be adopted by us. We will bring these on agenda at the next House meeting for approval. We are soon going to implement measures such as sector-wise sterilisation and informing residents about it in advance,” said MC Commissioner Anindita Mitra while talking to Chandigarh Tribune.

Hitesh Puri, chairman, Chandigarh Resident Associations Welfare Federation (CRAWFED), said, “If RWAs are involved in the process, dog-catching and sterilisation will be very effective. Since there will be no random picking for sterilisation now, the drive will be fruitful. But, a time frame must be fixed for sector-wise sterilisation.”

Karan Vir Singh Bajaj, a resident of Sector 21, said, “The new norms were much-needed to rule out corrupt and inefficient practices, which prevented desirable results in the management of stray dog population. The rules obligate the local authority to ensure proper and adequate facilities in each ABCC, maintenance of record that need to be updated on a daily basis and a progress report to be submitted on a monthly as well as annual basis.”

“The new norms will put to an end unethical practices adopted by dogcatchers. It is a welcome move,” said Ishwita Malhotra, a resident of Sector 38 (West).

4,735

Dog bite cases from Jan 1, 2022, to November 30, 2022, which are far more than cases reported in 12 of the UTs/ states in the country this year.

Census

The last dog census conducted by the UT Animal Husbandry Department in 2018 has identified 12,920 feral canines in the city. However, the MC claims to have sterilised 20,799 dogs between 2015 and November, 2021.

New norms

• Residents to be informed before holding a drive to catch dogs
• Sterilisation to be conducted sector-wise in the city.
• Animal plaint centre to be set up