The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Action plan for street dog control yet to take off

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 28, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Action plan for street dog control yet to take off

Swathi Shivanand

Stray dogs drew
the world’s attention to Bangalore

BANGALORE: Street dogs, as much as information technology and outsourcing, drew the world’s attention to Bangalore this year. The city was in infamous spotlight for the mauling to death of two children — eight-year-old Sridevi and five-year-old Manjunath — by packs of feral dogs.

In a knee-jerk reaction to a shocked city, the authorities randomly picked up street dogs, killing or abandoning them in far-flung areas. As always, a committee was set up to recommend measures to be taken to control the dog “menace”.

Seven months later, as the children’s deaths seemed to have faded into the archives of public memory, the committee report gathers dust and an action plan to address the issue of the growing ownerless canine population remains dogged by bureaucratic indifference. While Rs. 37 lakh was spent on conducting a census of dogs (there are two lakh dogs) and most recommendations of the committee were accepted by the Government, no action plan has been formulated, says M.K. Sudarshan, professor of community medicine, Kempegowda Institute of Medical Sciences, who headed the committee that brought out the report on checking the number of dogs in the city.

The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike might claim that it has addressed an important lacuna by initiating Animal Birth Control programmes in five new wards — Byatrayanapura [Compassion Unlimited Plus Action], Mahadevapura and Bommanahalli [Animal Help Foundation], Rajarajeshwarinagar [Animal Rights Fund] and Dasarahalli [Karuna] — which had no such programme. But the target of 800 sterilisations per day for every agency, monitored by an assistant director from the palike, is inadequate, says Dr. Sudarshan.

Public apathy

A senior official at the palike says that while there were a number of takers for the adoption scheme proposed by it, it has not translated into actual commitments. “We wanted people or residents welfare associations to come forward and take up the guardianship of the dogs in their areas. Many evinced interest but no one has really come forward,” he says.

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