last night, when I was on my way to home after daily work around 9.30 pm a pack of dogs started barking and chasing me in the lane by my house. In an attempt to escape I fell down and got left hand fractured with some minor injuries in my body,” said Dev Ojha about his confrontation with stray dogs.
While on one hand where capital residents are blaming Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) the civic body for not carrying the sterilisation programme properly on the other hand, officials of the municipal claim that they are doing enough to curb the menace of stray dogs.
Dr Vikram Manjhi, Health Officer RMC said, “The number of stray dogs in the city had decreased in a decade. Our sterilisation programme is showing a positive result and had been able to curve the menace of stray dogs to a great extent.” Although the programme has been running from last six to seven years yet Manjhi feels that ‘Miracle cannot happen overnight’ and according to him, “Slowly we are proceeding towards our goal and are hopeful that soon we will achieve it.”
While Hope and Animal Trust an NGO, who is carrying out the sterilisation programme across the city as per the instructions of RMC, admitted that the sterilisation drive is not being carried out efficiently due fund crunch.
According to Praveen Ohal founder of Hope and Animal Trust, as many as 40,000 stray dogs in the city are yet to be sterilised.
“For carrying out sterilisation drive within the city we receive fund from RMC and Animal Welfare Board. In 2012-13, we received fund for sterilising 11,000 stray dogs which we did. This year we were asked to sterilise 6,000 dogs but in last two months we could only sterilise 1500 dogs due to fund crisis,” Ohal added.
He further said, “We are also aware about the problem of stray dog but have no other way to overcome it, we cannot kill them. As per the instruction of the Supreme Court, we can only sterilise stray dogs in order to stop them from breeding. But this drive is also not running smoothly due to lack of fund. So the concerned authority must look into it.” The graph of dog bite patients in hospitals is also showing a growing trend. Every year more than 200 patients are enrolled in hospitals due to dog bite.
Dr Surendra of Sadar Hospital said, “Every year we deal with more than 200 cases of street dog attack. Till date around 70 patients have been treated. In every couple of days we get a patient suffering from rabbies.”