Animals are god's creatures and men owe them kindness.
Since that is not happening, members of the city-based Indian Institute of Jeevakarunyam and Research embarked on an awareness drive and initiated a unique exercise to cater to the drinking water needs of stray animals.
Water becomes scarce in the scorching summer months in the city. Women in some localities trek a long distance to fetch potable water.
Against this backdrop, keeping in mind the travails of stray animals which find no source of water to quench their thirst, the members donated water pots with an appeal to the local residents to fill them up with potable water and keep in front of their houses and shops for stray animals to quench their thirst.
In a meeting organised in this connection near Ram Mandiram on Eluru Road, Animal Husbandry Department Joint Director T. Damodar Naidu distributed these pots to animal-lovers and appealed to them to be kind to animals. Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Prasad said unlike in the olden days when almost every household would have water-filled pots placed in the frontyard or the backyard, which were used by stray animals, the modern households had no such facility.
Forest Range Officer, Vijayawada division, B.S.V.R. Prasad, said in the bygone era, the elders of the house would insist on feeding stray dogs with the left-over food in the house.
But that was not the case any more. So pathetic was the situation that for want of food and water, animals in forest ranges were straying into human habitations to fulfil their needs, he said.
Chairman of the organisation M. Venkateswarlu, animal lovers Ponnuri Satyanarayana and Sridevi were present.
