VELLORE: Vellore Corporation plans to resume the Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme within the city limits from the first week of March after being criticised by corporation councillors of Vellore Corporation’s apathy toward problems arising from stray dogs.
The ABC programme was discontinued last July when the doctors raised the fees they were charging from `60 to `100 for sterilizing a male dog and to `150 for sterilizing a female dog.
City Healt h Officer, Vasanth Diwakar, said that according to a survey conducted in 2011-12, there were 9,048 dogs within the city limit. More than 1,000 dogs were sterilized in the year 2013 and 42 dogs including male and female were sterilized between January and July 2014.
“On Monday (today), we are meeting the veterinary doctors and we will decide on resuming the programme this week,” Diwakar added.
During the recent councillor meeting, almost all councillors raised the issue of the stray dog menace in their respective wards and some councillors went to the extent of suggesting that the stray dogs need to be culled.
Responding to their concerns,the commissioner and health officials said that no one has the right to kill the dogs. They have only the rights to conduct an ABC programme.
Councillors said that after sterilizing the dogs they were again released in the areas where they were captured. This does not solve the problem of people fearing the dogs in the streets. With more than 10,000 dogs roaming the city streets the councillors felt they should be cleared.
Officials said that they have no option but to release the dogs in the streets after sterilizing them as they cannot maintain the dogs under one single roof.