Corporation ups efforts against dog menace

The Chennai Corporation will procure eight new vehicles for its dog catching squad shortly. The new vehicles will be procured at a cost of Rs.96 lakhs.

This is yet another step to tackle dog menace after the civic body announced its plans to permit more NGOs to take part in the animal birth control programme in added areas of the city.

After the vehicles are procured, the civic body is likely to respond quickly to calls made by residents for sterilisation of dogs in various localities. An increasing number of residents are keen to have dogs in their localities sterilised.

The civic body has six vans to catch dogs but only a few of them are being put to use now. After the expansion of the Chennai Corporation, most of the complaints are from expanded areas and more than 50 complaints are received at the Animal Birth Control Centre near Elephant Gate.

As part of its initiative of improving the Animal Birth Control programme in all the zones, the civic body had proposed the procurement of one vehicle for each of the 15 zones and the creation of three separate Animal Birth Control centres in the north, south and central regions of the city.

The eight new vehicles, however, will be a step forwards towards better animal birth control.

According to corporation officials, the dogs become docile after the birth control programme and they are reintroduced in the same locality.