The High Court on Friday asked the city Corporation to improve the facilities at the Animal Birth Control (ABC) centre at Vandithadam, failing which it cannot continue to operate the centre.
The civic body maintained that the existing system is a temporary one, while steps for improving the facilities have been initiated, and a longer-term project of ₹4.2 crore has been cleared by the council, which will be implemented within a year. The Corporation has sought two days time to take a call on the matter.
The Amicus Curiae report on the ABC facility at Vandithadam, presented before the High Court on Friday, has noted that the facility is totally ill-equipped to perform the task that it is expected to. Coming down heavily on the civic body authorities, the report says that the more-than-adequate land available with the Corporation has not been utilised in any manner to meet even the basic needs of the centre.
According to the report, the dogs are kept in inhuman and harsh conditions. As the cages are constructed with iron grills, the dogs are unable to even stand up because their feet would fall through the mesh and they have to balance themselves from falling through the wide gaps on the floor. Serious injuries are sustained to the paws of the caged dogs due to the cage itself, the report notes with attached photographs. The authorities have failed to show compassion to alleviate the dogs’ suffering by placing a tin sheet or wooden plank on the floors.
The report, presented by Amici Curi S.Ramesh Babu and T.C. Suresh Menon, says that a group of NGOs had told them that multiple dogs were kept in a cramped condition in the cage before their visit. The authorities started serving them cooked food recently only, while they were provided dry food (Pedigree) earlier.
The data in the record books on the number of dogs caught and sterilised did not tally with the data provided by the veterinarian. The authorities had informed the Amici Curi that three to five dogs out of 100 die, but none of these were subjected to postmortem, as required by the rules. The carcasses were buried in the compound itself due to the availability of space. The operation theatres are hardly sufficient to meet the requirements. The rack of medicines was almost empty.
