Stray Canine Menace: UT dog bite cases till Aug raise concerns, cross 2 years’ count

Tribune News Service

Sandeep Rana

Chandigarh, September 30

Shocking it may sound that by August-end, the city has witnessed more dog bite cases compared to the figures of the past two years.

From January 1 to August 31, the city had recorded 7,790 dog bite cases. From January 1 to December 31 in 2022 and 2021, 5,365 and 6,306 cases were reported, respectively.

However, there was no human rabies death in the past three years. Before that, from one to three cases had been reported annually for three years since 2018.

These details were provided by the National Centre for Disease Control (Directorate General of Health Services) in an RTI reply to an applicant, advocate Dharamvir Anariya, a resident of Mohali district.

Over 20L bitten in country this year

The country has registered a whopping 20.25 lakh dog bites cases from January 1 to August 31 this year. Punjab registered 12,906 cases, Haryana 27,741 and Himachal Pradesh recorded 13,635 cases, according to the RTI.

“I feel animal rights are more than human rights in this subject. There should be a balance between the two. We are witnessing gross violations of human rights. Despite sterilisation, dog bite cases are increasing. Governments should take over the sterilisation drive from NGOs/agencies. Canines should be kept in dog pounds rather than leaving these in the same area after sterilisation,” felt Anariya.

The city Municipal Corporation claimed to have got more than 22,000 stray dogs sterilised through various private agencies at a cost of Rs 2.14 crore since 2015. The corporation started an area-wise sterilisation drive for targeted results a few months ago.

Further, to strengthen its fight against the menace, the MC is working on changing the current dog bylaws to make them more stringent. However, there are slim chances of the MC getting the proposed bylaws implemented, as many of them have to be approved by the Centre after clearance by the MC House.