Bids invited for dog sterilisation

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, July 20

Finally, the Municipal Corporation (MC) floated tenders for the sterilisation of stray dogs on Friday. It is the third attempt of the MC to hire a firm for the sterilisation project. Two previous attempts of the MC went futile due to mismanagement and poor planning.

Now, the MC has again invited online bids. The MC had sanctioned Rs 18 lakh to start the project during the General House meeting in April. Rs 18 lakh would be spent on the sterilisation of 2,000 stray dogs. According to Mayor Karamjit Singh Rintu, the city has more than 30,000 stray dogs and it would be a pilot project.

Though such campaigns have been started in the past as well, these couldn’t succeed either due to mismanagement, opposition from animal lovers and shortage of funds.

MC officials say they want to rope in such firm which has been successfully working in other cities. The MC has also planned to take the services of pet lovers for sterilisation. Officials will call them to provide dogs to the firm with care. Instead of catching dogs from localities, the MC will ask residents to leave the dogs at the camp. The MC will spend Rs 900 on every dog. Earlier, the MC had inaugurated a dog registration drive to generate funds for the dog sterilisation. The dog registration cell was created at the Veterinary Hospital in July 2017 but it had received a poor response from residents. The registration process has almost stopped as hardly anyone turned up to get his or her pet registered. Recently, the MC decreased pet registration charges but residents did not respond.