Palike fails to contain stray dog menace

Nearly 11,000 have been bitten by dogs in past ten months

The rising cases of dog bites  only underlines the failure of the Palike’s Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme.

Every month, as many as 1,000 people are bitten by dogs, said sources in the Palike, and added that nearly half of them are bitten by pet dogs. Moreover, compensation has not been paid to any of the victims, as the BBMP did not find any of the case fit for compensation, the Palike added.

"Also, victims of dog bites this year did not suffer serious injuries to claim compensation,” said a BBMP official requesting anonymity. However, the civic agency has not fixed any parameters to evaluate the severity of a dog bite, he added.

In contrast, several cases were reported in the past few months wherein the victims were brutally attacked by dogs and had to shell out more than Rs one lakh  for treatment.

Domlur Corporator Geetha Srinivas Reddy noted that a pack of stray dogs ripped apart a girl’s right ear and damaged her face. The damage was so severe that she had to undergo a plastic surgery. A similar case was reported in Kumaraswamy Layout a fortnight ago where a small girl was fiercely attacked by stray dogs.

14 new vans to be added

The Department of Animal Husbandry, which has been criticised severely for failing to contain the stray dog menace, will be armed with 14 new dog vans from Friday. Each of the vehicles will be equipped with a driver, an assistant and two dog catchers.

With the vans being pressed into service, the Department expects to sterilise about 80,000 dogs every year and administer anti-rabies vaccines to at least two lakh dogs.

The job of the mobile squads is to catch dogs and sterilise them at the eight sterilisation camps. The dogs will later be left at the same place from where they were caught. At present the Palike has ten vehicles to catch dogs.