Rajahmundry: The stray dog menace has become so rampant that packs of dogs are found on streets at all times, and they are terrorising newcomers to the city and even chasing them.
In the last three months, six cases of rabid dog attacks on pedestrians and bikers were reported and four dogs were euthanized. It is common to see in several parts in the city packs of dogs lying down in the middle of roads obstructing traffic and creating a fear psychosis especially among the aged, women and children.
They keep on barking at people and at times even attack them. As the mating season has begun, a large number of male dogs are seen fighting in the middle of roads seeking a female dog, creating terror among people. At night, they keep on howling for a long time irking residents.
The stray dog population has gone up rapidly recently and according to an estimate, nearly 14,000 dogs are living in the city.
Though the government has taken up Animal Birth Control and Anti-Rabies Vaccination programmes and roped in several NGOs to check proliferation of stray dogs all over the state way back in June, 2016, it failed to yield results in the city especially following the stalemate between the NGO and civic authorities on setting up kennels in the quarry area to carry out ABC and ARV programmes.
The city-based NGO, Jeeva Raksha Animal Welfare Society, which was entrusted with the task of ABC and ARV is learnt to have asked the civic authorities to arrange 70 kennels while the civic authorities reportedly expressed their inability to arrange beyond the existing 23 kennels saying that local residents in the Quarry Market Area were opposing extension.
With no progress on eith-er side to go ahead with ABC and ARV programm-es, the dog population has proliferated in such a way that it has become unmanageable unless serious efforts are made to tackle the menace by subjecting them to ABC and ARV.
Jeeva Raksha Animal Welfare Society head and Animal Welfare Board of India welfare officer P.B.K. Acharyulu said, “We are entrusted with the task of ABC and ARV programm-es in several towns in East and West Godavari distr-icts and also Machilipatn-am division in Krishna district and we are able to successfully execute it and the programme is nearing completion everywhere except in Rajahmundry due to lack of support from civic authorities.”
