A dogged problem

It is indeed alarming that even as there is no progress in protection from the menace of stray dog bites in Punjab over the past few years, the departments responsible for controlling the situation should be growling at one another. The fact that in 2018, strays bared and sank their fangs into 1.13 lakh innocent people going about their routine businesses on the roads as compared to less than half of it — 54,000 — two years ago in 2016, should be a sobering thought. It should spur the people entrusted with the job to spruce up their act and make coordinated efforts on a war footing towards ensuring that the streets are safe from the packs of stray canines, lurking at almost every corner. 

The onus of regularly spaying and neutering the animals so to control their population and also building enough shelter pounds lies jointly on the departments of Rural Development and Panchayats, Local Bodies and Animal Husbandry. Sadly, the government policies have remained ineffective. Not only the grit, determination and priority of the civic bodies, but also funds earmarked for the programme have been woefully inadequate. There can be no other reason for the abysmally low success rate of controlling the breeding of strays. In more than 10 years, the sterilisation rate has been less than 1 per cent.

And, unfortunately, extraneous factors have not been conducive for this sterilisation drive and taming of the violent strays to be fully effective. Aggressive support from the civil society is required. The menace cannot come to an end unless the sterilisation plan is complemented by the eradication of the garbage mess. The scavenging animals have to be starved of the food that they scrounge from the overflowing bins and open mounds of food waste. Only then will the horrifying attacks by the canines be leashed. The reduction in the number of stray dogs will in turn rid India of its unenviable tag of having the maximum deaths by rabies. The estimated 20,000 people dying annually from rabies account for 36 per cent of such deaths worldwide, as per the WHO.