The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Uncertainty looms over dog sterilisation plan

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 17, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Uncertainty looms over dog sterilisation plan

Staff Reporter

AHF has promised to sterilise 50 dogs each day

HYDERABAD: It is still not clear when Animal Help Foundation (AHF), the Ahmedabad-based voluntary agency, will begin neutering and vaccinating street dogs though it has been two days since its landed here.

The 15-member AHF team led by veterinarian Das, vets, para-vets, dogcatchers and a driver arrived on Saturday equipped with nets and other paraphernalia.

The team members are said to be doing a recce of 38 localities under Circle-I that has been allotted to AHF on a pilot basis. The Municipal Corporation has already provided them with a vehicle for catching the dogs.

Yet no one is sure when the real action will begin what with officials being busy in receiving maiden Chief Commissioner for the newly formed Greater Hyderabad C.V.S.K. Sarma and uncertainty prevailing about the administrative structure.

It's all confusion

To add to the confusion, Chief Veterinary Officer P. Venkateshwar Reddy, in the hot seat after the street dogs scare began last month, has been posted as a coordinating official for the month-long `Praja Patham' that too for `politically sensitive' Karwan constituency. "The AHF might begin the animal birth control programme in a day or two at the Dog Pond in Chudibazar," said Dr. Reddy. Operation theatre facility there could easily handle up to 150 operations a day hence; there is no issue in sharing space with AHF.

The civic body has been receiving up to 40 complaints a day. It catches up to 80 dogs on an average and performs 20 sterilisations a day. "We will continue catching, neutering, vaccinating and culling diseased dogs in other areas even while AHF starts working," he said.

AHF has promised to take up sterilisation of 50 dogs each day. They are being paid Rs.445 per dog and the first instalment of Rs. 4.5 lakhs is ready for disbursement even while a formal tie-up is yet to sewn up!

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