Who will solve stray dog problem?
Stray dog nuisance is higher in urban areas of India. In villages, domestic dogs are the most common. Since they have owners to look after and feed them, they are not as troublesome as stray dogs. In the past, when the number of dogs increased, local bodies would release the dog catchers, catch them, and kill them by injecting them with drugs. Therefore, the number of stray dogs did not increase beyond a certain limit. Due to the pressure from animal lovers, the Supreme Court had ordered that dogs should not be killed, and that if killed, a case would be registered and violators would be punished. The number of stray dogs in cities has increased dramatically after this order. Since these dogs grow up on the streets, no one has any certainty about whether they have rabies or not!
Stray dogs attacking people walking alone at night and jumping in front of two-wheelers, causing road accidents, have become a recurring incident everywhere. Based on the experiences so far, it can be understood that catching all the dogs and keeping them in shelters is a proposal that will fail in practice in the Indian context. The only way out for this is to hand over the care of shelters to animal welfare organisations, give them government grants and allow them to find money through sponsorships and other means. However, no animal welfare organisation has informed any court in any petition that it is ready to run shelters.
Several children have died in Kerala due to bites from rabid dogs. It is extremely worrying that those who have taken the rabies vaccine are among the dead. The Supreme Court has ordered the construction of a shelter and the relocation of all stray dogs in Delhi within eight weeks, taking suo motu cognizance after a six-year-old girl died of rabies in Delhi. The court did not allow animal rights organizations to intervene. The court also asked whether the animal rights organizations could bring back children who died of rabies. A bench of J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan has warned that contempt of court action will be taken if organizations or individuals oppose the capture of dogs. Stray dogs are a nuisance not only in Delhi. This action will have to be taken in all cities in India. In practice, it is likely to fail.
The central government has the power to bring a new law to override the Supreme Court's ruling that dogs should not be killed. The government should give priority to the problems of people's lives. In the wake of the Supreme Court's criticism, state Local Government Minister M.B. Rajesh has demanded that the central government be prepared to scrap the impractical ABC rules. It must be assumed that the requirement to sterilize stray dogs and return them to the place where they are caught is a provision written by some official who has no certainty about the future consequences of this problem. The court itself has now asked why this is being done. The respective states should be given the power to decide in this regard. In any case, it is imperative that there be a practical solution to this problem from the people's representatives.