Govt mulls control room to tackle stray dog menace

Sanjeev Singh Bariana

Chandigarh, March 7

In order to tackle the stray dog menace in the state, the government is mulling the setting up of a unified control room.

Local Government Minister Inderbir Singh Nijjar informed the Assembly about this today and said the government would come up with an effective plan during the next session.

While replying to a query posed by MLA Kashmir Singh Sohal during Question Hour on the measures initiated by the state government to cope with stray dogs, Nijjar pointed out that the cost of sterilising dogs varies because civic bodies depute different agencies.

In many cases, timely decision was not taken by civic bodies and the money had to be returned, the minister said, adding that they were working on the related issues.

Responding to a question of MLA Gurpreet Singh Banawali on the government land being encroached upon, Minister for Rural Development and Panchayats Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal said, “We will bring a law to punish the encroachers who are roaming scot-free.”

MLA Gurdit Singh Sekhon highlighted the issue of certain freedom fighters not getting their due. “There are two categories of freedom fighters in Punjab. One of them has not received any benefit of the existing schemes. In my constituency, the roof of the house of a freedom fighter collapsed, but he didn’t receive financial assistance. Recently, Faridkot administration also lost the record of freedom fighters.”

Minister Chetan Singh Jouramajra said, “I will personally visit all such freedom fighters.”