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The authorities at Srinagar Municipal Corporation (MC) plan to launch an extensive animal birth control program to sterilize around 50,000 stray dogs in six months.
The initiative aims to effectively control the growing population of stray canines, which has been an ongoing problem in Kashmir. Over the past 12 years, around 66,700 cases of dog bites have been reported at Srinagar’s anti-rabies clinic.
Srinagar MC commissioner Athar Amir Khan said the company plans to conduct birth control against animals and rabies vaccination against 75% stray dog populations in Srinagar, in accordance with Indian Animal Welfare Committee guidelines and animal (dog) birth control regulations. 2001.
“The request for a proposal to complete the agency has been published,” he said while sharing the development on Twitter.
He added that the program was concluded with proposals from Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, the Preventive and Social Medicine Department of GMC Srinagar and members of civil society and NGOs.
The company’s veterinarian, Dr. Javaid Rather said they are planning a massive sterilization program, for which a call for tenders was posted on Sunday.
“We want to do around 50,000 sterilizations within six months,” he said.
“A new survey is being conducted to determine the actual population of the canines,” he said.
Stray dogs have been a major civil and health problem for the people of Kashmir for years, especially in Srinagar, where conservative estimates suggest that the stray dog population is between 60,000 and 70,000.
Dr. Hilal Ahmad, in charge of the Rabies Clinic at Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) Hospital in Srinagar, said that in the past two years (April 2019 to March 2021) there have been 11,782 cases of animal bites, mainly from stray and rabid dogs Clinic treated.
“Up to 6,984 people were affected in the period 2019-20, and a further 4,798 in the period 2020-21. We provided rabies vaccines and immunoglobulin to patients at the clinic for free, ”he said.
Dr. Rather said the new efforts are aimed at overcoming the downside of the sterilization program.
“The sterilization volume used to be small because we only had a limited infrastructure. We couldn’t do more than 15 sterilizations a day. But now we want to do 5,000 to 6,000 sterilizations per month, ”said Rather.
