Thiruvananthapuram: Poor infra may fail Animal Birth Control target

Thiruvananthapuram: The target set by the district panchayath for Thiruvananthapuram to be an ABC district - January 1 - is highly ambitious, according to experts working in the field. While there are 21,000 dogs to be sterilised, the district might not be able to sterilise more than 600 dogs by December 31, they say.  This opinion is based on the existing infrastructure, staff and funds available. There are six centres in the district each with one veterinarian hired on a contract basis.

No para-vet staff has been hired. When asked about this, District Animal Husbandry Officer S Surendran said that there were three dog catcher trainees at each centre, one of whom who would double up as an attendant to assist the doctors during ABC surgeries. The surgery can take place only on three days, as there are not enough cages to keep the dogs. The maximum weekly output would be 12 dogs from a centre, which means roughly 50 dogs a month.

By November 15, twelve centres will be working. Even then, the centres won't be able to sterilise too many dogs as there are fund constraints. One dog sterilisation procedure ranges from Rs  1200 to Rs 2000. Towards ABC, the district panchayath has contributed Rs 20 lakhs, block panchayaths Rs 10 lakhs and each grama panchayath Rs 1 lakh. So each centre will have close to RS 45,000 to spend, which means a centre will not be able to do more than 50 procedures.   

Ideally, all planning pertaining to ABC - the number of dogs to be sterilised, deadlines, staff and infrastructure - should be based on the dog census. If one goes by the 2012 Livestock Census, there are at least 31,000 stray dogs in Thiruvananthapuram. It cannot be relied upon, however, as it does not conform to the census methodology prescribed for counting strays. Moreover the data is now four years old. Officials say that there could be one lakh dogs. If so, the staff, and infrastructure need to be beefed up.