‘ULB to raise more shelters using pre-fab structures after securing land’
Sanjeev K Sharma
JAMMU, Nov 18: With only two fully-filled shelter homes in hand, the Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) is poorly prepared to immediately implement the recent guidelines of the Supreme Court of India regarding shifting of stray dogs from the educational institutions, hospitals, transport hubs and other such places.
Sources informed that a third shelter home of JMC for stray dogs is under construction at present in Bhagwati Nagar area and it will be ready within a month.
“Work on this shelter home was started much before the SC directions,” they said.
Reliable sources informed that at present, the Urban Local Body (ULB) has two such shelter homes-one in Roop Nagar and the other in Chowadi, which started functioning in the month of July this year.
“At Chowadi, the shelter home has 30 cages wherein one cage can accommodate 3-4 dogs. So the shelter home can roughly accommodate about 100-120 dogs while the one at Roop Nagar is accommodating about 150-200 dogs at present,” they maintained adding: “Both these shelter homes are completely filled at present.”
Follow the Daily Excelsior channel on WhatsApp
When contacted, Dr. Gorav Chowdhary, Animal Welfare Office at JMC informed that after securing land from the district administration, JMC will raise more such shelter homes using pre-fab structures.
Sources informed that the issue was discussed in a very high level meeting of Jammu and Kashmir UT administration conducted in this regard few days back.
On sterilisation facility for canines at the two existing shelter homes, Dr. Chowdhary said that earlier the facility was only at Roop Nagar but from the month of July this year, the same has been started at Chowadi also to control the population of unsterilized dogs.
“When a dog is picked by the JMC, its sterilisation is done the very next day and it is kept at the shelter home for three more days after which it is vaccinated for anti-rabies so that such canines may not pose any risk to others on their release to the place from where they were picked,” he further said.
It is pertinent to mention here that few days back the Supreme Court of India directed all States and Union Territories (UTs) to ensure the removal of stray dogs from educational institutions, hospitals, sports complexes, bus depots and railway stations.
The Apex Court has also said that such dogs cannot be released back into the same locations after sterilisation as their return would frustrate the very purpose of securing such premises and addressing public safety concerns.
Experts opined that implementation of the directions of the apex court may trigger protests from dog lovers and other such activists.
The post With only 2 shelter homes, JMC poorly equipped to implement recent SC directions on stray dogs appeared first on Daily Excelsior.