Five animal birth control centres to come up in Delhi

This will be an attempt to boost community dogs’ sterilisation and immunisation process, according to MCD officials

In an attempt to boost the sterilisation and immunisation process of community dogs, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi plans to operationalise five more animal birth control centres in the city, officials said on Monday.

In the last 10 years, the sterilisation programme has covered 575,000 dogs in the city, according to MCD. (HT Archive)

The centres will come up in Dwarka Sector 29, Rohini Sector 27, Tughlakabad, Prahladpur and Mundhela, they said. At present, there are 16 such centres in the city run by MCD.

A senior municipal official from the veterinary department said that expression of interest has been invited from non-governmental organisations and the process is likely to be completed by June-end.

“Once these five units are operational, we will have 21 such animal birth control centres running in the city to cater to the dog sterilisation programme,” the official said, asking not to be named.

Community dogs are either picked by the veterinary department or teams of NGOs, after which they are sterilised and immunised against rabies and kept in observation for a few days before being released in the same area. The process costs ₹900 to ₹1,000 per dog, officials said.

“Under the arrangement, we provide space in the form of these units which are run by NGOs. They are paid ₹900 to ₹1,000 per dog for sterilisation and immunisation depending upon whether it was captured and brought by the veterinary department,” the official said.

Under regulations of the Animal Welfare Board of India, the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (1960), and the Animal Birth Control (Dogs) Rules, 2001, it is illegal for an individual, residents’ body or municipal bodies to remove or relocate a dog from its area.

In August last year, the civic body launched a dog sterilisation module on its application to monitor the entire process, from the pickup of the dog and its arrival at the dog sterilisation centre to the date of surgery and the release of the dog. “All details are updated online with photographs. Veterinary department officials can monitor the activity through the app,” the official quoted above said.

Over the last 10 years, the civic body has spent more than ₹55 crore on the dog sterilisation programme, data from MCD shows. It has covered 575,000 dogs between 2014 and January 2023.

The erstwhile civic bodies sterilised 33,125 dogs in 2014-15, 37,990 in 2015-16, and 44,635 in 2016-17. The programme saw an upswing in the subsequent three years with 83,656 sterilisations in 2017-18, 88,175 in 2018-19 and 99,997 in 2019-20 before a slowdown was observed during the pandemic year with 51,990 dogs being sterilised in 2020-21. The number once again rose to 83,461 in 2021-22.

MCD’s animal birth control programme targets to sterilise at least 80% dogs in an area to stop population growth. “On an average, we target to sterilise at least 80,000-90,000 dogs every year,” the official added. MCD has only been able to achieve 80% sterilisation level in 17 of its 250 wards.

There is no data on the number of community dogs that roam Delhi’s streets. However, last month, HT reported that MCD has initiated the process for carrying out a citywide survey in this regard, according to senior municipal officials confirmed.

The last pan-Delhi survey was conducted by erstwhile united MCD in 2009 which found the number of stray dogs in the Capital to be over 560,000.