No end to dog menace

Stray dogs are giving residents of Dwarka a tough time.

Due to the lackadaisical approach of the MCD, the dog population control programme has become a total failure and canine menace has become a permanent problem in Dwarka.
This winter, the number of stray dogs has increased but the MCD still claims that sterilisation is going on in the sub-city to control the canine population.
Sectors such as 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18 and 19 are the most affected. Residents of these sectors complain that dogs attack people, scatter garbage from dustbins and defecate everywhere, creating an unhygienic atmosphere.
Animal activist and a resident of Sector 10, Rishi Dev, said sterilisation is effective in areas such as Dwarka and claimed cases of dog bites and rabies have drastically decreased.
He says, "One male dog can produce 80 dogs in a year and you can see that with the years, the growth has decreased in Dwarka. It is due to sterilisation. But in some parts of Delhi, the planning and execution is almost a failure. MCD has given the work of sterilisation to 10 NGOs in Delhi. The works of these organisations is not up to the mark. There are 98 dog units of MCD but they are not working."
Rishi said in India, a dog census was done only once and that too two years back.
Veterinary officer of MCD Dr Jagbir Singh said, "We pick dogs and sterilise them to stop their breeding. Both male and female dogs are taken. The dogs that undergo the sterilisation process are also given anti-rabies vaccination, which is effective for a year. After one year, we repeat the process on the same dogs."
Dr Jagbir said a policy is on the anvil under which dogs of a particular area will be sterilised at one time so that it becomes easier to recognise them to repeat the process after one year.