Delhi’s first civic dog sterilisation centre soon
The city will get its first municipal dog sterilisation centre-cum-veterinary hospital on Monday in west Delhi’s Peeragarhi.
The city will get its first municipal dog sterilisation centre-cum-veterinary hospital on Monday in west Delhi’s Peeragarhi.
The centre, set to come up in Udyog Nagar, will operate from an 11-room municipal building and will have a capacity to sterilise 100 dogs every month.
Officials in the department said the move comes in the wake of criticism the civic body has received over the increasing number of dog bites. Three other centres are likely to be ready by the end of next year.
“The centre in Udyog Nagar will run from the existing municipal building, although we have made further changes and established a temporary structure to make sure that everything is per the law,” said a municipal official.
He said the corporation had also devised a plan to extend the centre on the remaining area of the plot. “Merely half of the 2000 sqm area has been covered. Once the other centres are completely operational, we will establish a fully functional veterinary hospital at the location,” the official said.
Apart from the centre at Udyog Nagar, the corporation plans to establish a fully equipped hospital in Rohini and small sterilisation centres in Timarpur and Shradhanand Marg.
Senior leaders in the corporation said that the hospital set to come up in Rohini sector 27 will be able to sterilise more than 10,000 dogs every year.
“The north corporation has acquired a 2,000-sqm plot in Rohini for a sterilisation centre for dogs and work on the project has already been initiated. The project is likely to be completed in 18 months,” said a senior official.
Officials said that without a single veterinary centre of their own, the corporations have appointed NGOs to help sterilise the dogs. But in the absence of a dog census, the civic agencies don’t know if the sterilisation efforts are succeeding.
“At times we catch stray dogs and then hand them over to the NGOs, although it is an expensive affair for the corporation. Since the corporation is already going through the worst financial crisis ever, paying the NGOs has also become a huge liability,” said a senior official.
Plans such as purchasing more dog-catching vans and increasing manpower, issuing public notices to raising awareness on dog sterilisation, involving Residents Welfare Associations in immunisation programmes have been on the paper since long.