<p>A community cat sterilisation centre has recently opened in Jayanagar.</p>.<p>Murty Trust, the family foundation of philanthropists Sudha Murty and Narayana Murty, in collaboration with Compassion Unlimited Plus Action (CUPA), have opened the centre in Jayanagar. Called Maitri, the clinic is one of India’s first such centre dedicated to community cats.</p>.<p>The CUPA team has been working towards this for three years, says Ajay Arjun, head of projects and resources. The NGO, through their community enabled cat ABC (animal birth control) model, has sterilised more than 5,000 community cats in the last six years. “With the number of procedures increasing we felt that there is a need for a separate centre for neutering and vaccination of community cats,” he tells Metrolife.</p>.<p>Since the centre’s inauguration on December 28, around 150 surgeries have been carried out. “About 15-20 surgeries are conducted per day on three days a week. We plan to scale up our operations in the coming days,” he says. Ajay says the team is “working towards keeping the centre open six days a week, and increasing surgeries to 40-50 per day”.</p>.<p>The centre is equipped with an operation theatre, a cat holding area, a preparation area (for when the cat is under anaesthesia), a medicine room, an OPD room, and a store room.</p>.<p>At a private clinic, a sterilisation procedure will cost anywhere between Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000, which excludes post-operative care, antibiotics and medicines. “We provide all of this for Rs 1,500,” he says. Each sterilisation procedure takes around 15-20 minutes, and includes administering vaccination and antibiotics.</p>.<p><strong>Why such a space?</strong></p>.<p>There are several initiatives and programmes for dogs, and rarely any connected to community cats. For the past six years, there has been a significant rise in the stray cat population across the city, Ajay says.</p>.<p>“We have received a lot of complaints from housing societies and welfare associations about this. There have also been cases where citizens have tried to relocate or poison the cats. All of these concerns led us to focus on such a project,” Ajay explains.</p>.<p>For appointments, write to cupaprojects@cupaindia.org</p>
<p>A community cat sterilisation centre has recently opened in Jayanagar.</p>.<p>Murty Trust, the family foundation of philanthropists Sudha Murty and Narayana Murty, in collaboration with Compassion Unlimited Plus Action (CUPA), have opened the centre in Jayanagar. Called Maitri, the clinic is one of India’s first such centre dedicated to community cats.</p>.<p>The CUPA team has been working towards this for three years, says Ajay Arjun, head of projects and resources. The NGO, through their community enabled cat ABC (animal birth control) model, has sterilised more than 5,000 community cats in the last six years. “With the number of procedures increasing we felt that there is a need for a separate centre for neutering and vaccination of community cats,” he tells Metrolife.</p>.<p>Since the centre’s inauguration on December 28, around 150 surgeries have been carried out. “About 15-20 surgeries are conducted per day on three days a week. We plan to scale up our operations in the coming days,” he says. Ajay says the team is “working towards keeping the centre open six days a week, and increasing surgeries to 40-50 per day”.</p>.<p>The centre is equipped with an operation theatre, a cat holding area, a preparation area (for when the cat is under anaesthesia), a medicine room, an OPD room, and a store room.</p>.<p>At a private clinic, a sterilisation procedure will cost anywhere between Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000, which excludes post-operative care, antibiotics and medicines. “We provide all of this for Rs 1,500,” he says. Each sterilisation procedure takes around 15-20 minutes, and includes administering vaccination and antibiotics.</p>.<p><strong>Why such a space?</strong></p>.<p>There are several initiatives and programmes for dogs, and rarely any connected to community cats. For the past six years, there has been a significant rise in the stray cat population across the city, Ajay says.</p>.<p>“We have received a lot of complaints from housing societies and welfare associations about this. There have also been cases where citizens have tried to relocate or poison the cats. All of these concerns led us to focus on such a project,” Ajay explains.</p>.<p>For appointments, write to cupaprojects@cupaindia.org</p>