Dog-bite cases at all-time high in Mohali

Sanjay Bumbroo

Tribune News Service

Mohali, September 19

There is no let-up in dog-bite cases. The past eight months saw 2,690 incidents, an all-time high in this city.

The contract for the sterilisation work had ended recently. The local Municipal Corporation has sent a proposal to the Local Bodies Department to extend the contract.

Residents are scared to step out for a walk in parks and lanes. According to rough estimates, there has been an increase of 1,000 in the number of stray dogs in about a year. In June 2019, their number was around 9,000, which has grown to around 10,000.

Most cases were reported from Phase 3B1, 3B2 4, 5, 9 and 10 and Sectors 76 to 80 where stray dogs rule the streets. On Thursday, a stray dog bit a 60-year-old woman.

Sources said the contractor’s staff hesitated to sterilise strays in view of the pandemic.

In a report submitted in October 2019, the then chairman of the stray dog sterilisation committee of the MC, Kuljeet Singh Bedi, had stated that sterilisation process was just on papers till date. In the past two years, it was observed that the previous company had not been operating stray dogs but doing dummy operations, the report had stated.

Harmandeep Kaur Brar, nodal officer for Covid at the Civil Hospital in Phase 6, said dog-bite victims had to face physical torture. She said sometimes, it could cause rabies, which could be a horror for patients as they become hydrophobic to an extent that even administering glucose drip to them became difficult.

MC Commissioner Kamal Kumar Garg said the contract for sterilisation had ended and a proposal was sent to the Local Bodies Department to extend the contract.