Left Door Pounding

The dog pound next to Naidu Hospital on the RBM road continues to be in the limelight for the wrong reasons, the most recent being the visitors' ban enforced by it.

The pound, operated by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), is in the news yet again after witnessing the death of four dogs in its premises last month.
In an ironic mover that followed soon after, the doors of the dog pound were closed shut for volunteers and visitors who'd contributed significantly towards the well-being of the pound.
The volunteers, working in tandem with the PMC and Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), the general body appointed by the PMC to take care of the pound, are attributing the dire state of the pound to the negligence of PMC authorities. They allege that the PMC officials are lease bothered about the hygiene and welfare of the dog pound although they claim to be working towards the same.
"The dogs at the pound continue to suffer at the hands of unprofessional, incompetent staff members who perform surgeries on them," said Manjari, a volunteer who visits the pound daily.
The PMC officials, on the other hand, are singing a completely different tune. Refuting the allegations, PMC's medical officer S T Pardeshi said, "These claims are completely baseless; no deaths have occurred on account of doctors' negligence." Shedding further light on the issue, Santosh Dasture, the PMC supervisor who takes care of the dog pound, revealed, "The four dogs in question succumbed to an infection; they were not even operated upon. We have many volunteers who keep pouring in and disrupt our work process at the pound; it makes matters worse for us."
 Now, the PMC authorities have barred these volunteers from entering the premises of the pound, the message being driven home by a 'no visitors' board at the entrance, a step that has irked the volunteers.
"Volunteers are great help to the pound operations. Now that we have been barred, we cannot no more provide the additional help with the things that the pound is not equipped with," opined Ashwini Dasgupta, another volunteer, also a member of Pune Animal Lovers (PALS) group.

CONFLICTING TALES
The PMC officials' accounts, though, continue to appear in stark contrast to those offered by the volunteers.
"Every now and then, these volunteers keep barging in and obstruct our work. We could no more bear the brunt of such interruptions and therefore had to close the pound doors," said Pardeshi. "Apart from the disturbance, the volunteers draw unwanted visitors inside the pound, who add to the chaos," he added.

COUNTER ALLEGATIONS
• While volunteers claim that the death of four ailing dogs at the pound was caused by officials' negligence, the authorities allege that it is the volunteers' unneccessary interference that hinders the smooth functioning of the pound.

--Anuj Ismail