Food and water bowls installed for all strays

PUNE: An organization looking after the various needs of pets ‘PetKliye’, recently rolled out an initiative to set up food and water bowls for stray animals across the city.

The startup is run by Sohail Inamdar, Devashish Gogoi and Rutuj Mutha who started the ‘Bin to Bowl’ initiative two months ago.

“Citizens contact us and we go install the bowls for free wherever we get permission. We started this two months ago and we’re running it on a trial basis right now. We want to expand it in the future,” Inamdar said.

They have installed seven sets of bowls in the Koregaon Park, Baner, Nigdi, Pimpri Chinchwad and Akurdi areas. Anyone can volunteer. Citizens contact them to install the bowls and later ensure that food and water are provided to the dogs. “We go twice a week to check the bowls,” Inamdar said.

“We do a survey of the area before setting up the bowls. The bowls are placed near garbage bins because dogs always seem to eat from there,” Inamdar said.

Devashish and Rutuj designed the food bowls. “It took us around a week to come up with the design concept. This one is the most cost efficient,” Devashish said.

Their model involves a dog feeding bowl attached on iron rods with screws welded. These are then drilled into walls. Volunteers are allotted in each area to take care of the food and water bowls.

Arpita Wahid Sheikh, a volunteer who had contacted them from Nigdi Pradhikaran, said the bowls were a boon. “I had seen these bowls set up in another area near Lokmanya hospital. Soon after I contacted them they came and installed the bowls here,” she said.