Residents of the Greater Hyderabad must either adopt the lakhs of pups being bred by the street dogs in the city during the monsoons, or bear the brunt of their bites.
Adoption is the only way to control the growing street dog menace, and catching marauding monkeys is too expensive for GHMC to handle, Commissioner B. Janardhan Reddy made clear, while answering the corporators who expressed concern about the dog and monkey menace in the city during the general body meeting on Thursday.
Refuting a proposal by the corporator Bangari Prakash – that GHMC may open shelter homes for dogs and hand them over to any NGO – as too expensive, Mr. Janardhan Reddy said that there were over 8.23 lakh street dogs in the city, and over 1.63 lakh were yet to be sterilised.
Each pair of unsterilised dogs bred about 4,000 pups in their life time, and GHMC can only sterilise 80,000 street dogs per year on an average.
“We do not have enough veterinarians who can sterilise the dogs. Some doctors are from places such as Bihar, and work for only a few months under GHMC before finding better opportunities,” Mr. Reddy said.
GHMC also has influx of dogs from adjoining municipalities where no birth control operations was being done. As the population increases, dogs cross the boundaries and enter the GHMC area to mark their own territories.
Promoting the ‘Maa Inti Nestam’ programme for street dog adoption, Mr. Reddy said the scheme has multiple benefits if owned up by the residents.
“If the dogs were adopted and provided food, they will keep other dogs and monkeys at bay. Dog bite incidents owing to water scarcity and food anomalies will not take place. Further, the dog will stay at one place, which makes its sterilisation an easy job,” he said.
So far, only 1,200 dogs have been adopted under the ‘Maa Inti Nestam’ scheme, he revealed, and promised that GHMC will promote it with renewed vigour.