THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: After years of impasse, the city corporation’s ambitious plan to set up a multi-specialty veterinary hospital and Animal Birth Control (ABC) centre project on the lines of Greater Chennai Corporation model is finally taking off with the council approving a Rs 5.5 crore project that aims to manage the growing stray dog population in the capital.
The project conceived back in 2021 aims to strengthen the city’s stray dog management infrastructure. The plan is to execute the project in two phases. “The total project cost is Rs 5.5 crore. To facilitate execution at the corporation level, the work has been split into two phases. The first phase, estimated at Rs 2.5 crore, will primarily cover the civil structures and basic infrastructure. The remaining Rs 3 crore will be utilised in the second phase,” said a senior corporation official. Once fully operational, the facility is expected to conduct around 40 ABC surgeries per day.
“Once the facility is fully operational, we will be equipped to perform around 40 surgeries daily, targeting nearly 1,200 animals per month. Currently, our capacity is limited to just about 100 surgeries a month. At full capacity, we estimate handling around 8,000 dogs annually,” the official said.
The project is expected to accelerate the corporation’s efforts to control the stray dog population. “In the initial year of full-scale operation, we expect to handle around 8,000 dogs.
Achieving a visible reduction in the stray dog population requires sustained operations over several years,” the official said.
Following the council’s approval, the corporation has received the structural design and other technical details from Chennai Corporation. The official said that a meeting will be held soon with the Chennai team to settle the technical requirements, after which the project will be taken up for tendering.
“Following the council’s approval, we received the design from Chennai. However, we require a few additional technical specifications. We are planning a meeting with the team concerned to finalise these aspects. Once the design is finalised, we will proceed with tendering,” the official said. The corporation is yet to decide whether to invite agencies from within Kerala or issue a broader Expression of Interest (EOI) for executing the project.
