CHENNAI: The city corporation is due for a stray dog census this year, four years after its last census in 2018. However, corporation officials said that the date for this year’s census has not been finalised although discussions are on to conduct it in December.
The census, conducted once every four years, helps in identifying hotspots in the city where there are stray dogs in large numbers and shifting them for mass sterlisation and immunisation. The drive, last conducted in July 2018, had teams of two staff — a driver and an observer — on motorcycles to identify stray dogs. Upon identification, the dogs were marked on a customised mobile application to map hotspots.
The results of the census in 2018 showed that the city had 57,366 stray dogs, a substantial decrease from the 82,438 dogs that were identified in the 2014 census. This year, the numbers are expected to drop further. “We have increased animal birth control (ABC) surgeries to around 1,000-1,250 a month and with two new ABC centres set to come up, the number of surgeries will further increase,” said a senior corporation official.
This year, two new ABC centres are to come up at Meenambakkam and Sholinganallur at an estimated cost of Rs 80 lakh. The new centres are expected to decentralise ABC surgeries and help avoid transporting the dogs over long distances to one of the three existing centres at Lloyds road, Kannamapet and Basin Bridge road, which are also to be renovated.
The corporation also has plans to demolish the Lloyds Road centre since it is in bad shape and construct new buildings in its place. At Kannamapet and Basin bridge, in addition to revamping the existing structures, additional buildings are to come up.
Survey every 4 yrs
The census, conducted once every four years, helps in identifying hotspots where there are stray dogs in large numbers and shifting them for sterlisation and immunisation