In a bid to get rid of stray dog menace in the city, Ranchi Municipal Corporation has renewed the contract with social organisation Hope and Animal Trust for three years. Under the contract, the organization would not just work towards an anti-rabies drive but will also work on sterilizing stray dogs to ensure that their population does not grow.
Deputy Mayor Sanjiv Vijayavargiya said, “Stray dogs have been a menace in the city for a long time and the corporation plans to get rid of the problem once and for all. That is the reason that the contract with the organisation, which lapsed around six months ago has been renewed.”
Apart from renewal of the contract, the corporation is also providing a new hospital building to the organisation to vaccinate and sterilize stray dogs of the city. “Earlier, the sterilization was done at the RMC’s store house at Barkri Bazaar area but the locals objected to it. This is the reason that we are shifting them to a new building situated in a secluded place at Ketari Bagan in Chutia,” the deputy mayor said.
On the directions of RMC, a survey conducted by Humane Society International in December 2018, the report for which was released in May this year, showed that 71.8 per cent of stray dogs were sterilised in the city when the survey was being conducted.
The data showed that since 2007 69ll 2018, a total of 77,502 dogs were sterlized in the city of which 77,502 dogs survived till the time of the survey. The report also said that 12,188 dogs at the time of the survey remained to be sterilized.
Praveen Ohal of the organisation said that the population of dogs would have risen in the last six months when the work was on a halt but now that the contract has been renewed they would start sterilizing dogs again.
He further said that with the help of UK based organization Mission Rabies, Hope managed to make Ranchi rabies free in 2017. "Deaths due to rabies used to be reported till 2014.
However, since then no new deaths were reported and Ranchi received rabies free tag in 2017.
Ranchi has also been mentioned in the report of World Health Organization for being a rabies free city," Ohal said.
However, sterilizing dogs is not easy for the organisation as they have to often face backlash from the local residents.
“Many a times people do not allow our men to capture and bring in the stray dogs for sterilization as they keep these dogs as pets. If we get some support from the locals we will be able to get rid of the stray dog menace very soon,” Ohal said.
At present the stray dog menace in some areas of the city is extremely high with a number of people complaining of stray dogs howling throughout the night and attacking people walking on the streets.