In Chandigarh, stray dog issue comes to bite candidates

According to the details accessed by The Indian Express, a whopping amount of Rs 1.26 crore has been spent in the last 21 months on sterilisation of over 7,412 dogs. Residents, though, continue to live in fear, questioning the drive as bite incidents continue to occur.

Charu Gupta, a resident of Sector 27 in Chandigarh, stated that her daughter is still not out of the trauma after she was bitten by street dog and she had to get injections for ten days inside the wound. Gupta stated that now her daughter feels scared to move out.

“My daughter is traumatised. She was recently attacked by street dogs. And this attack was completely unprovoked. She was attacked through her trouser. And my daughter had to get injections inside the wound which you know how painful can be. She is really scared to move out now,” Gupta said.

“It would be great if the sterilisation drive gets strengthened or some mechanism is made to prevent the dog bites. The only thing is that even if you are just passing through, they surround you and attack you out of the blues,” she added.

BJP leader and senior councillor, Mahesh Inder Singh Sidhu, also a senior advocate at the Punjab and Haryana High Court told The Indian Express that it is high time that central laws be amended in a bid to fix this issue.

“The stray canine menace has reached alarming proportions and despite the best efforts of the authorities their population is growing. The central laws need to be amended to give powers to local authorities to remove a few of the strays in case they are unable to contain their numbers,” Sidhu said.

BJP councillor Harpreet Babla, who has several times raised this issue, said that “Chandigarh has gone to the dogs” and claimed that none of the measures is being taken in a “concrete way”.

“We cannot call this city as City Beautiful till we are able to solve this menace. Unfortunately, my sector has witnessed a lot many canine bites and nobody has been taking this issue seriously even after I raising my voice in the House time and again,” Babla said.

He said that the municipal corporation (MC) intervened only when the number of bite incidents became manifold. “We are having the sterilisation programme, effect of which will be seen in the years to come. It is extremely unfortunate that nothing has been done in a concrete way. When we have several projects to make Chandigarh a smart city, we have to deal with this menace, which is keeping citizens indoors in fear,” the councillor added.

What the figures suggest

An amount of Rs 1.26 crore has been spent in 21 months for sterilisation of 7,412 street dogs. Of the 4,923 street dogs sterilised at ABC Centre at Sector 38 (West), 2,263 are male and 2,660 female, according to data from June 27, 2022 to April 30, 2024.The sterilisation is being carried out at the Sector 38 centre at Rs 1,700 per dog. Apart from this, from October 21, 2023 till April this year, an additional 2,489 street dogs were sterilised at ABC Centre in Raipur Kalan, of which 1,237 are male dogs and 1,252 are female at the rate of Rs 1,700 per dog.

From April 5, 2015 till June 2017, as many as 9,114 street dogs were sterilised by SPCA Maharashtra, an NGO. Then from August 2017 to September 2019, 4,971 street dogs were sterilised by a Madhya Pradesh-based firm
The sterilisation process then took a halt and restarted from September 2020. From September 2020 till November 2021, 6,721 dogs were sterilised. After a break again, the process began from June 27, 2022.

Chandigarh MC officials said that they have sterilised 28,218 street caninesince April 2015 and are doing their best to tackle this.

City under the ‘siege of street dogs’: Residents

Vinod Vashisht, Convener, City Forum of Residents Welfare Organizations (CFORWO) said that city is under “the siege the street dogs”.

“In Chandigarh, I would say almost every hour there is one dog bite case. Street dogs’ menace is continuing for last so many years without much respite and remedial actions by municipal authorities. According to the UT animal husbandry department’s previous survey, there were around 10,000 stray dogs in the city, meaning one stray dog for every 20 households. The higher population and growth for these canines are clear indicators that sterilisation measures being undertaken under ABC Rules, 2001 have not been sufficient so far in the city,” Vashish said.

“Rule 8 of the ABC Rules provides for easy identification of sterilised dogs from the ones not immunised. MC should introduce use of ‘Nyon Collars’ for the sterilised dogs as per the ABC Rules instead of putting a ‘vee notch cut’ in one of the ears of the dogs, for making identification easier for the public,” he added.

Shikha Nijhawan, President, Resident Welfare Association (RWA), Sector 27-D said that they she has witnessed events where street dogs have attacked those on two-wheelers and walkers.

“A pack of dogs is majorly found near feeding points such as meat shops, religious places, parks and green belts, milk booth. People are feeding dogs near their houses. These dogs aggressively treat the area as their territory and attack pedestrians/ walkers and those on two-wheelers, which cause serious injuries sometimes.

Though sterilisation was done for a few dogs by the civic body, which may help in future, but strict rules must be enforced by the Chandigarh Administration for security and safety of general public,” Nijhawan said.

According to certain residents, the ineffective sterilisation drive in the city has led to this menace.

“The biggest reason for street dogs population is the grossly faulty drive and adding to this is citizens feeding strays, making them territorial and thus attacking passerbys,” Sanjeev Raghuvanshi said.

“ Our councillor seems to be the only one raising this issue very strongly in the MC House, but in spite of all her dedicated efforts, the desired results have just not happened. The onus is totally on MC to stop this menace,” he added.

Pradeep Aggarwal, President, RWA, Sector 28-A said that almost every second house is victimised by these dog bites by the stray dogs of their sub-sector. “It has become difficult for us to move out freely of their respective houses. Several representations were handed over by the RWA 28-A to our councilor. There should be regular inspection of these sterilisation drives,” he added.