Ludhiana: In view of the demand of the city residents to extend the December 31 deadline for the registration of pet dogs and cats, the civic body has decided to give another three months to the people. As per the previous decision, the pet owners were to pay 10 times the normal registration fee of Rs 400 from January 1, 2021.
On the expiry of the deadline on Thursday, a total of 1,306 pets had been registered with the Ludhiana Municipal Corporation (LMC).
The registration of pets was started by the LMC on June 24 last year and the residents were given time till December-end for getting their pets registered. In the initial days the pace of registration was satisfactory, but gradually the numbers came down.
By October-end, only 256 dogs were registered and by mid-December, this number had gone up to 533. However, in the last week of 2020, more people came forward to register their pets to avoid the hefty penalty, leading to an over two-fold rise in the registrations. Incidentally, so far no pet cats have been registered.
There is also a provision for the registration of dog breeders, dog shops and organisers of dog shows, but as of now, the civic officials are focussing only on the pet dogs and cats. They intend to focus on the other segments later.
The sources revealed that the officials were not expecting these many applications for registration, as they do not have any data about the number of pets in the city. The officials said in the days ahead, they are also planning to create poop zones in residential areas and the pets owners would be asked to clear the poop of their pets from these zones, so that other residents do not face any problems.
Senior veterinary officer Dr Harbans Dhalla said, “The people have options to get their pets registered online as well as at Suvidha Centres. Earlier, the owners were not even collecting the registration tokens mandatory for the registered pets to wear in their neck collar, but now they have started picking it.†He said without the token in a pet’s collar, the registration would be considered incomplete.
Municipal commissioner Pardeep Sabharwal said, "Although the deadline ended on December 31, we are going to extend it for three months for the residents, who could not register their pets earlier." The concept of pets’ registering was something new for the public, so more time is being given to them, he added.