BHUBANESWAR: A Day after a five-year-old boy was mauled to death by stray dogs in Hyderabad, Animal Resources Development Minister Ranendra Pratap Swain woke up to the problem and directed all chief district veterinary officers (CDVOs) to remove all stray dogs from the streets in the state.
Odisha, curiously, has the second highest number of stray dogs in the country after Uttar Pradesh which only points at the failure of Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme in the state. However, the Twitter-savvy minister was happy to post: “Seeing this horrifying incident at Hyderabad, I have directed respective CDVOs to be strictly vigilant and remove stray dogs from roads. CDVOs have also been instructed to take immediate and proper action regarding this.”
Animal rights activists, however, said this is an impossible task and the state government should prioritise plugging the gaping holes in effective implementation of the ABC programme.In fact, the last Livestock Census done by the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying in 2019 puts the number of stray dogs in Odisha at 17.34 lakh while the population was 8.62 lakh in 2012, almost 50 per cent rise in the population. Uttar Pradesh, however, has brought down its number of stray dogs to 20.5 lakh in 2019 while it was 41.7 lakh in 2012.
According to a reply by the Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare in the Lok Sabha, state saw 57,354 dog bite cases till November 30 last year. The preceding year, it was 59,085 cases while in 2020 and 2021, the number of dog bite cases was a whopping 1,55,031 and 1,77,474 respectively. “When the dog population rises due to failure of the sterilisation programme, the animals get aggressive due to lack of food and bite people,” animal activist JB Das said.
After a brief gap, the ABC programme was streamlined in November last year in areas under the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation by the civic body through a Maharashtra-based private agency, but it remains a misnomer in Cuttack and other urbans areas of the state.
In the capital city, the programme is being carried out amid lack of infrastructure facilities. The Saheed Nagar Veterinary Hospital has 120 kennels and of them, 80 are set aside for the ABC programme which is grossly inadequate. Currently, the private agency is sterilising nearly 300 to 500 dogs every month in Bhubaneswar and the drive is being carried out five days in a week. In Cuttack, the ABC centre near Khapuria has just 40 kennels for the purpose.
Das alleged although the state government is allocating a large amount of money for ABC programme in urban areas, it is being embezzled by corrupt officials which is why population of stray dogs is growing.