The Hindu 06.01.2014
Corporation readies vehicles to round up community dogs
In a few days from now, the Coimbatore Corporation will
start catching community dogs as it has readied two vehicles for the
purpose.
According to sources, the civic body had
purchased two vehicles at Rs. 15 lakh with funds from the State
Government. The vehicles have six chambers to hold as many community
dogs.
The Government had provided Rs. 10 lakh as
grant. The civic body had chipped in with the rest. The Corporation will
use the vehicles to transport the mongrels to the two animal birth
control centres in the city. It will at present send the animals only to
the centre at Seeranaickenpalayam and start taking the dogs to the
Ukkadam centre once the construction is complete.
As
on date, the Ukkadam centre is nearing completion. The civic body
entrusted to People for Animals II the management of the centre.
At the Ukkadam centre, the Corporation has proposed to perform at least 500 animal birth control operations a month.
After
the operation, the dogs will get to stay at the centre for a day or two
and then return to the areas from where the Corporation workers had
caught them.
For the managers of the Ukkadam centre,
the Corporation will pay only the operation and maintenance charges. For
the managers of the Seeranaickenpalayam centre – Humane Animal Society –
the Corporation will also pay for the transportation, if the
organisation had transported the dogs.
At present, at the Seeranaickenpalayam centre, the organisation performed more than 100 operations a month.
The
sources said that as part of the efforts to control the community dog
population, the Corporation had also planned to train five persons as
dog catchers. The training would start soon.
The sources said that the Corporation had estimated that there were around 40,000 community dogs in the city.