Alarmed at the increasing number of complaints about stray dogs, the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) had sterilised and immunised over 2,000 stray canines since last year, spending over Rs 14 lakh.
On receiving complaints, the stray dogs are caught by the civic-body staff and handed over to NGOs for sterilisation and anti-rabies immunisation. The council's veterinary branch has recently started doing the same for complaints about monkeys and stray cattle.
"We caught and sterilized a total of 2,016 dogs since April 2014, including 903 in past three months. There has been a rise in the number of complaints and we have spent Rs 14,11,200 in the sterilisation and immunisation process during the period," Pramod Kumar, Medical Superintendent, NDMC Veterinary hospital said.
"We got over 600 complaints in the past three months from residents in NDMC areas about presence of stray dogs," he added.
The civic body has caught 22 stray cattle since April and has sent them to Acharyamuni gaushala. Similarly, 49 monkeys have been caught during the period and have been sent to Asola Wildlife Sanctuary.
While the council staff is engaged in catching the dogs and stray cattle, for the monkeys professional catchers are engaged and they are paid a fixed amount for each simian caught.
"Once we send the cattle and monkeys to the gaushala and sanctuary, we also pay them the feeding charges for those animals," Kumar said.
The NDMC authorities, however, say the problems it is facing in tackling the dog menace are not infrastructure or manpower related but policy issues.
"What we analysed is that we get maximum complaints from residents about presence of the stray dogs in their areas. They request us to remove the dogs from those areas but as per the rules we cannot completely remove them," said Dr MS Bhatia, CMO, NDMC.
"According to the rules, the civic bodies have to catch these animals, sterilise and immunise them and release them in their respective places. Public often complains that the municipalities don't do enough but the problem is that we are bound not to remove them," he added.
