For residents of the city, who are weary of the menace of stray dogs, Chennai Corporation has some welcome news.

The
civic body has procured eight new vehicles for animal birth control
measures in the city. So far, the new vehicles have been used for
catching 121 dogs for animal birth control. Each of the 15 zones of the
city will have a vehicle to cope with stray dog menace. Councillors have
been reporting stray dog menace at the council meeting in the past few
months. But the efforts of the civic body to strengthen animal birth
control programme did not have the desired results.

After
the expansion of the city limits, the number of calls made to the
helpline for stray dog control increased considerably. The new vehicles
are expected to increase the number of birth control operations to 4,500
from 2,000 every month.

The lack of vehicles had
hindered the response of the Corporation to the complaints of residents
pertaining to stray dogs. In the past four years, the civic body claims
to have caught around 70,000 dogs of which over 65,000 have been
sterilised.

As many contract labourers fail to turn
up during emergencies, the civic body had also planned to make use of
the services of NGOs to tackle such problems. Most of the stray dog
menace complaints are from expanded areas, with 1.5 lakh stray dogs.

In
2012, the civic body performed sterilisation on about 19,000 dogs, an
increase of 5,000 when compared to that of 2011. The officials will
follow up on complaints received on the Chennai Corporation helpline
1913. After increase in number of vehicles, the challenge in finding
dog-catchers remains the only hindrance to animal birth control in the
city. Corporation officials said it was difficult to find people even
after the rate per dog caught has been increased to Rs. 50.