CANINE HOUSING
Animal rights force BMC to seek high court advice …TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Mumbai: It is quite a dilemma for the BMC. The civic body cannot decide whether to keep male and female dogs together or separately in the two proposed shelters for canines in Palghar and Thane. The problem will be highlighted in an affidavit the civic body will submit to the Bombay high court during a hearing scheduled for Friday.
The court had ordered the BMC to set up two shelters for the citys strays on the outskirts of Mumbai. But the BMC workers, while going about the task, came across several hurdles.
NGOs may say we are denying the animals
their rights if we keep dogs and bitches separately. But at the same time, we cannot keep the males and females together as then there may be fights over mating rights, BMC commissioner Jairaj Phatak said on Thursday.
The civic agency has acquired two 43-acre plots at Palghar and Thane to develop two townships for dogs. But civic officials have another problem besides the dogs mating rights; the cost
of feeding the strays will be Rs 10 crore annually. Who will feed these dogs? In a city like Mumbai, where nobody feeds the poor, will it be wise to spend crores on feeding dogs? Phatak questioned. All these points are being raised in the BMC affidavit.
The BMC has also completed its stray dog census, which pegs the citys stray population at 70,182 and pet dog count at 26,900. But the numbers are interesting; in three wardsBandra, Elphinstone and Central Mumbaithere are more pets than strays.
There are 2,028 pets and only 1,815 strays in Bandra. There are 465 pets and 441 strays in Elphinstone and in Central Mumbai, there are 1,507 pets compared to 1,459 strays. This shows either our sterilisation plan has been implemented properly or there are too many pet lovers in these areas, Phatak said.
Last year, the BMC sterilised 13,000 dogs. It plans to sterilise 25,000 dogs this year. Phatak also, somewhat ambitiously, claimed that the BMC would sterilise all strays in the city in the next twoand-a-half years. NGOs had said in court, during the last hearing in January, that it would be impractical to shift strays to the township.