Stray dog menace has reached diabolical proportions in the city as evidenced by the death of an eight-year-old boy Mohammed Ayan from Kishanbagh in a canine attack recently.
The boy was flying kites along with friends close to Musi River, when a pack of stray dogs attacked the group. While two of his friends could escape, Ayan became easy victim when he fell down while fleeing. The incident has exposed the gaping chinks in GHMC’s claims of regularly conducting Animal Birth Control (ABC) operations on the stray dogs in joint operations with non-governmental organisations.
After the latest instance, GHMC’s veterinary wing officials have conducted a drive and rounded up a total of 43 stray dogs in two days. The dogs will be vaccinated, sterilised and released in the same locality, officials said. However, the moot question is as to how such a high number of dogs were thriving when sterilisations were being conducted in required numbers.
The corporation has five shelters in the city, where the surgeries are performed. However, dogs are brought here only when there is a complaint from a particular locality. The number of surgeries per day is too low when compared with the total number of free ranging dogs in the city.
As per the official claims, 250 ABC surgeries are performed each day on stray dogs across all the six zones. However, this figure is highly disputable, say sources under the condition of anonymity.
“The most hectic day in any shelter sees not more than 10 surgeries in a single day. Most often, the number hovers around two to three per day,” shared a worker.
Considering that the city is home to a total of 4.61 lakh stray dogs, the number of surgeries per day is but a drop in the ocean. The Charminar Zone alone has a total of 90,000 stray dogs, reveal officials.
“Earlier, GHMC had proposed an ABC drive in the lines of Polio vaccination, whereby all the dogs from a chosen locality are rounded up, sterilised at once, and released on the same day. The Animal Welfare Board of India has refused to grant permission for the same, and said recovery period for each dog is two to three days at shelter. We have no wherewithal to do it at such massive scale,” shared an official under the condition of anonymity.
Another problem lay with the infiltrating dogs from the surrounding municipalities. Charminar Zone shares borders with other municipalities such as Jalpally and Bandlaguda, where ABC measures are not in force. Dogs from these municipalities enter the GHMC when the local dogs are taken away for birth control operations, say officials.
“They come here to rummage through trash, when the resident dogs are away, and make the territory their home. After we release the local canines, the number grows exponentially,” says an official.