GHMC needs 5 years, Rs 1,500 per dog to carry out sterilisation of 100% strays
HYDERABAD: Do you know how much time it will take to sterilise and administer anti-rabies vaccine to all the 1.70 lakh stray dogs in Hyderabad?
Not less than five years! The population would continue to proliferate even as the birth control operations go on. This is because of the lack of kennels available at the five animal care centres in the city.
The five animal care centres located at Fathullaguda (LB Nagar Zone), Chudi Bazar (Charminar Zone), Patel Nagar (Khairatabad Zone), KPHB Colony (Serilingampally Zone), and Mahadevpur (Kukatpally and Secunderabad Zones) do not have the capacity to sterilise and immunise more than 200 dogs per day.
Presently, the GHMC veterinary wing, apart from other obligatory duties, is also carrying out an ABC/AR programme in its all six zones by involving Animal Welfare Organisations (AWOs) recognised by the Animal Welfare Board of India and performing about 40,000 ABC surgeries per annum.
In order to sterilise the existing population of street dogs, the civic body would require not less than five years and by the time 100 per cent saturation is achieved, new street dogs would have taken birth. For sterilising these dogs, the GHMC would require over Rs 25 crore.
The AWOs who after catching the street dogs have to carry out ABC/AR programme with their operation theatre equipment, medicines, anaesthetic drugs, suturing material, surgical equipment, ARV etc, required for the entire programme, are paid Rs 1,500 per dog. The AWOs should house these dogs in suitable kennels at the animal care centres and sterilise the healthy dogs and not undertake sterilisation of pregnant dogs.
All the dogs that are sterilised along with ARV vaccination should be given post-operative care for 4-5 days in case of males and 5-6 days for females.If the surgical wounds don’t heal, the dogs are to be provided with post-operative care beyond the above period till the wound is healed.
After sterilisation, immunisation including rehabilitation for five to six days, the AWOs should again release the dogs back in the same areas from where they were caught before sterilisation.For easy identification of sterilised dogs, a small V-shaped cut is made in the dog’s ear before it is released in the same locality or streets.
To ensure safety, GHMC asked AWOs that the pregnant dogs would not be operated upon and puppies and adult dogs would be housed in separate kennels.GHMC officials told TNIE that the street dogs after being caught will be transported to the respective Animal Care Centres where ABC surgeries are carried out.
They should arrange a sufficient number of cages and kennels, operation theatre equipment, at their own cost as per the requirement in the Animal Care Centre of GHMC.They said that each of the five animal care centres has a capacity of 40 to 200 kennels. The GHMC is utilising the services of People For Animals, Animal Welfare Society, Navodaya Vet Society, Blue Cross of Hyderabad and Vet’s Society for Animal Welfare and Rural Development for ABC-ARV by utilising the existing five animal care centres.