While majority of Indian States are conducting animal birth control (ABC) programme on stray dogs, Uttarakhand is doing nothing in this direction despite the earlier directives of the Uttarakhand High Court and recent order of the Supreme Court. Stating this while addressing the media in Dehradun, People For Animals, Uttarakhand member secretary, who is also the impleader in the special leave to appeal in the Supreme Court, said that she plans to file contempt of court against the Uttarakhand Government at the next hearing in Supreme Court.
Addressing the media here on Friday, Maulekhi said, “As per the decision of the Uttarakhand High Court in March 2014, all the local bodies in Uttarakhand were given upto six months to construct ABC campus and ensure implementation of the ABC programme as per the standard operating procedure of the Animal Welfare Board of India. Not a single urban local body has either started action on a work plan nor constructed ABC campus. As per the Supreme Court directions of November 18, 2015 all urban local bodies are to complete construction of the ABC campus and establish basic facilities.”
Quoting the Supreme Court, she said, ‘As we find, the local authorities have a sacrosanct duty to provide sufficient number of dog pounds, including animal kennels/shelters, which may be managed by the animal welfare organisations, that apart, it is also incumbent upon the local authorities to provide requisite number of dog vans with ramps for the capture and transportation of street dogs; one driver and two trained dog catchers for each dog van; an ambulance-cum-clinical van as mobile centre for sterilisation and immunization; incinerators for disposal of carcasses and periodic report of shelter or pound.”
Maulekhi said that the chief secretary’s office had formed a state level ABC implementation and monitoring committee headed by the Urban Development principal secretary in May 2014 but since then this committee has met twice and done little work.
She said, “The memorandum of understanding submitted by the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun has been under consideration at the level of the urban development secretary for two years now. It is surprising that instead of successfully conducting the ABC programme as done across the nation in various cities including Jaipur, Chennai and Jamshedpur among others, the Uttarakhand Government is spending crores of rupees on a futile and expensive monkey sterilisation programme which has proved to be a failure in Himachal Pradesh. The next date for the case in Supreme Court is March 9, 2016 and as the impleader in the case, I will present the activities undertaken so far as contempt of court,” added Maulekhi.