CHANDIGARH: Returning home from duty at a call centre in Mohali on a two-wheeler on Tuesday night, two youths were hounded by a pack of stray dogs near Beant Singh Memorial Complex, Sector 42. While the scared boys tried their best to dodge the canines, they could not avoid the dog bites. This doesn’t happen to be the solitary case of dog attack in recent days. A week ago, an elderly couple, while taking their morning stroll in a Sector-36 park, was chased by canines.

While a number of complaints of stray dog attacks have been pouring in from different parts of the city, municipal authorities have not been able to control the situation. According to an estimate, the dog population has reached between 8,000-10,000. Admitting that ‘the situation has spiralled out of control’, a member of the minicipal corporation’s sanitation committee, AP Sanwaria, said, ‘The Supreme Court’s directive does not allow killing of canines and the much-publicised dog pound hasn?t been built as yet.’

Stressing that the only way to arrest the exploding population was to undertake sterilization programmes at a regular interval, Sanwaria revealed, ‘We have floated a tender to invite sterilization experts from private agencies so that the much-delayed work could begin again. We have kept aside a budget amount of Rs 10 lakh for this.’ But sounding apprehensive, he continued, ‘Frankly speaking, there seem to be very few options at hand. It is a long-drawn process as you cannot sterilize more than 10 dogs in a day.’

Meanwhile, his concern does not seem baseless as inquiries by The Times of India revealed that the MC health authorities’ sterilization programme that was initiated last year, flopped. A source in the department said, ‘We had engaged a number of animal bodies working in the city but they could not proceed beyond sterilizing 2,000 dogs’.

Taking up the issue of dog pounds, Sanwaria added, ‘After sterilization, the dogs are to be left at their take-away site. The upcoming dog pound will have a capacity for only around 700 canines and that too, of the ferocious kind.’ In this respect, MC’s sanitation committee chairman Chander Mukhi Sharma said, ‘We have just been allotted two acres in Sector 25.’ He assured, ‘We will try to build the pound quickly.’