Lokmat News Network
Aurangabad, Sept 14:
The stray dogs continue to pose a nuisance and terrorise citizens each day as the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) is witnessing 10-12 dog-bites cases daily. The hospital administers an anti-rabies injection to the victims. Meanwhile, the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) claimed that it had spent Rs 2.66 crore on the sterilisation of dogs in the past seven years. Today, the population of stray dogs in the city is around 40,000.
The AMC launched the sterilisation programme in 2015. Earlier, it was paying Rs 625 per animal against sterilisation to the private agency. Now, it is paying Rs 900 per dog to Osmanabad’s agency. The AMC underlined that 10,000 canines were sterilised in 2020-21 and more than 8,000 in 2021-22. This year, the AMC will be spending Rs 83 lakh on the task. Out of which, Rs 50 lakh had been spent in the last eight months. It has been observed that the speed of work has been slowed down as the AMC sans appropriate staff to catch the stray dogs and an adequate number of vans to transport them to the canine centres.
The AMC’s veterinarian Shahed Shaikh
said, “The AMC is sterilising 8,000 to 10,000 stray dogs each year. They are vaccinated as well. They are less aggressive. Besides, the danger of getting infected with rabies is low. The present population of dogs is less compared to the past years. In the coming years, the AMC will sterilise 100 per cent population of stray dogs.”
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The agency is given a target to sterilise at least 700-800 stray dogs every month. Many times, the stray dogs fled away on seeing the van. They smelled the rat. Hence catching stray dogs is a difficult task.
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According to sources, 419 dog-bite cases were reported in August. It includes 298 males and 121 females. Daily 10 patients with dog bites are visiting GMCH and the hospital is administering the anti-rabies injection to them.