Hyderabad: A three-year-old girl was the latest victim of the stray dog menace that continues to haunt the city. A stray bit the ear and cheek of N. Krithika at Ram Reddynagar in Ramanthapur on Thursday. She was admitted in a private hospital where her condition has been declared out of danger after receiving stitches.
A day after the incident, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) pressed into service dog catching vans. According to corporation officials, they had captured 13 street dogs from that area on Friday. They will be released after sterilisation.
Reportedly, the civic body officials are in a dilemma as many people are asking them to relocate dogs to other places.
As per the guidelines of the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) and Supreme Court orders, stray dogs can neither be shifted to other locations nor left abandoned elsewhere. The norms mandate that they should be sterilized and left at the very place from where they were picked up.
As a part of its animal birth control-cum-anti rabies (ABC-AR) programme, GHMC officials are sterilizing dogs and leaving them within a 100-metre radius from where they are picked up.
“We frequently receive requests asking for relocation of dogs. A resident welfare association (RWA) has threatened that they will leave all the street dogs roaming in their colony at our animal care shelter in Fathullaguda. If we flout the court orders and Centre’s norms and relocate dogs, our jobs will be at stake, "said a senior GHMC official.
A check with other ULBs like BMC, New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) and Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) revealed that they were all governed by the same rules. A major difference is that these ULBs focus on feeding programmes by involving NGOs and dog lovers in addition to sterilization. Meanwhile, BMC has started a ‘rabies-free Mumbai’ initiative, as a part of which they vaccinate dogs.
Meanwhile, speaking to Deccan Chronicle, GHMC officials said that they were far ahead of other ULBs when it comes to implementing ABC-AR programmes and in curbing dog bite incidents. They said that officials from other ULBs, including Chennai, take inputs from GHMC.
