After failing to control dog menace in the city for years, the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation is finally embarking on a full-fledged project of minimising dog menace in and around the city.
The VMC recently roped in a Tirupati-based organisation Animal Care Land, which had so far sterilised over 70,000 dogs, to take up animal birth control (ABC) and anti rabies vaccination (ARV) for the thousands of dogs in the city and its outskirts. For the same, the VMC will be spending Rs. 750 per dog and the Animal Care Land is completely responsible for catching the dogs, sterilising them, taking post operative care, vaccinating and releasing them at safe and secluded areas.
The Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation spends Rs. 980 for the same.
According to VMC’s veterinary assistant surgeon N. Sridhar, there are about 12,000 dogs which need to be caught and sterilised as early as possible as their aggressiveness comes down post ABC operation.
“The organisation we have roped in will be taking care of the entire process under the purview of VMC. Our target is to sterilise all the dogs before Krishna Pushkaralu commence but due to different reasons like lack of veterinary doctors we are lagging behind the schedule. However, we target areas like Bhavanipuram, Gollapudi and others which have ghats, to control dog menace and complete before Pushkaralu. It may take at least five months to sterilise all the dogs in the city limits,” he said.
According to an official study, Ajith Singh Nagar and One-Town areas have more number of dogs.
“Also, an ear of dog will be marked after sterilisation and vaccination so that identification is possible. After the ABC operation, organs of the dogs will be counted and disposed off carefully.”
Mr. Sridhar further said not many rabid dogs had been identified so far and the dogs that drool continuously and move in circles often were highly likely to be affected with rabies.
