Animal lovers who have, for the first time, rated the BBMP’s Animal Husbandry Department, admit that the civic body has been doing better than they had anticipated. However, there is still room for improvement on many fronts, especially with regard to timely payment to vendors, more focus on rescue, and shelters, they said.
Priya Chetty Rajagopal, founder and managing partner of C.J. Memorial Trust, a non-profit organisation working for animal welfare, said the workings of the Animal Husbandry Department had improved vastly over the last two years. “The BBMP has taken several measures proactively for animal welfare. They have begun to use technology for better transparency, improved the Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme, and set up the first rabies helpline for the city. Civic officials, including Special Commissioner (Animal Husbandry) D. Randeep, Joint Director Lakshminarayan and team, have been working with various animal welfare organisations,” she said, and added that the BBMP had now transformed into a protector of street dogs and had supported animal lovers in the city.
The checklist of all the positives drawn up by the animal lovers who are part of the BBMP’s WhatsApp Monitoring community clearly outweigh the negatives. But some areas that need much improvement, according to the checklist, include timely payment to vendors, better metrics and transparency with monthly data being put up on public domain, increase in checks on ABC centres, more focus on rescue and shelters, and leveraging existing facilities.
Acknowledging the good feedback received from animal lovers in the city, Mr. Lakshminarayan said this had encouraged the department to strive towards improvement.
“This would not have been possible without the active involvement of citizens. At the end of the day, all that the BBMP and citizens want is animal welfare,” he said.
