Dog bite cases increase by 20% in megapolis, reveals RTI query

Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) claims to be dedicated for providing better facilities to Mumbaikars, seems to have forgotten its objective. This can be said so as the richest civic body- BMC which has an annual budget of crores of rupees has failed to arrange 65 lakhs for the Mumbaikars and instead turned a blind eye to the rising menace of canines in the city.

The casual approach of the civic body has led to a 20 per cent increase in cases of canine bite. According to data procured through a Right to Information (RTI), in the last one-year dog bite cases in the city has surged from 82, 000 to one lakhs. “The data also revealed that on an average 273 people are bitten by dogs on daily basis, ” said an activist.

As per the guidelines of World Health Organisation (WHO), sterilisation and anti-rabies help to control the aggression. But as per animal activists, the ‘dog-biting’ schemes of BMC has certainly failed to control the number of biting cases considering the gradual rise in numbers.

The animal activists claims these number are less as most of the dog bite cases are been reported to the private hospitals. “The number which are been procured are less in number as the cases reported at private hospital are not compiled with the BMC data,” said Nirali Koradia, an animal rights activist.

At a time, when the number of dog bite cases are on a rise, several NGOs who are working with BMC in this project are yet to receive the money. “We had invested Rs 65 lakhs for the vaccination of the stray dogs. But despite knocking the door of the BMC for the last one year we have not received a single penny,” said Utkarsh Star Mitra Mandal.

On the rise

In the past six years, more than 5 lakh dog bite cases have been recorded in the city with the highest number of cases (1,09,563) registered between March 2017 and February 2018. In 2012, 82,274 cases of dog biting were recorded in the city that fell down to 80,934 cases in 2015. In 2016, 82,564 cases were registered with BMC. All these bite cases treated at 100 Anti Retro-Viral (ARV) centres which include anti-rabies vaccination.