Despite spending Rs.7 crore on the salaries of its Veterinary Department staff, the North Delhi Municipal Corporation is able to sterilise only 500 dogs per month.
Municipal officials admitted before the Standing Committee on Wednesday that the civic body had spent Rs.7 crore on paying its nine veterinary doctors and other support staff, but did not have much to show in terms of results.
Standing Committee member Dr. Sanjeev Nayyar said the veterinary surgeons were not even performing sterilisation procedures on stray dogs, so their skills were being wasted. “What are they there for? Just to file paperwork and tenders,” said Dr. Nayyar, who is also the chairperson of the Health Committee.
The reply to the Leader of the Opposition Mukesh Goel’s short-notice query said the corporation did not have any capacity to sterilise stray dogs on its own. The civic body has to rely on NGOs to do the procedure once it catches stray dogs.
The official data said in April and May this year 1,026 dogs were sterilised by the corporation and between July 2012 and March 2014 a total of 9,448 were operated upon. For the same period, 56 monkeys were relocated to the Asola Bhatti mines.
Mr. Goel said: “There are at least 3 lakh stray dogs in Delhi, but the corporation says there are 1.5 lakh. Even if we go by that number, the corporation is failing at controlling the population by doing only 500 sterilisations monthly.”
BJP councillor Virender Babbar said stray dogs were “terrorising” Delhiites. “In fact, safai karamcharis refuse to clean Chandi Wali galli in Paharganj because if they go there they are attacked by dogs,” said Mr. Babbar.
