MC lacks bite, pet registration drive goes toothless in Ludhiana

LUDHIANA: With little action against defaulters, the pet registration drive has turned out to be a flop show for the Ludhiana municipal corporation. As as result, pet registrations as well re-registrations have taken a back seat with very people turning up for the same.
In the past three years, a total of 2,626 pets have been registered in the city, out of which 2,124 were registered in the first year of the drive.
Civic officials blamed poor manpower for not carrying out any survey regarding pets. They claimed they have now tied up with Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (Gadvasu) where people come for treatment of their pets. One MC employee goes to the university for registrations.
Sources said MC could have at least acted against those who had registered their pets in the first year but never came back for registration in the later years.
The civic body had launched the pet registration programme in the city in June 2020. The pet registration is being done online as well as offline in MC suvidha centres. A token is given to pet owners which is to be worn by the pet when it is out for a walk with the owner. A nominal fee of Rs 400 was fixed for pet registration. In the first year, officials put maximum efforts and registered 2,124 pets. Though pet registration has to be renewed every year, only 263 pets were registered in 2021-22 and 239 pets were registered in the past 10 months.
Notably, MC officials do not have data about total pets in the city in the absence of any survey. Though they had announced launch of a special checking drive in houses, where penalty was supposed to be imposed on pet owners, who had not registered their pets, the exercise was never conducted. MC joint commissioner Kulpreet Singh admitted low interest by the public, but claimed that they have started sending an employee for registration to Gadvasu and offering some discount to people. He said their first goal is to get maximum pets for registration and then they will start strict enforcement.