Stray dogs, pigs hog open plots

Residents of Lakshminagar at Picket are a harassed lot. Pigs and stray dogs are terrorising residents in the colony. Locals complain that there are open plots where stale food and garbage is dumped and this attracts the animals.

The pigs are owned by some families who live in the nearby slums behind the Jubilee bus station, and are invariably let loose by the owners to forage for food.

“The owners of the open plots stay elsewhere. We found out their addresses and urged them to at least construct a compound wall around the plots to prevent dogs and pigs from entering. But they don’t listen. Some of us residents got the open plots cleaned of garbage many times, but people still throw waste here. We can’t keep on spending money to clean up others plots. There has been no response from Cantonment Board officials to our representations,” said Mr Arcot Ramesh, a Lakshminagar resident .

“Women are scared to go out to buy vegetables because of the stray dogs. The dogs chase people on two-wheelers. I appeal to the Cantonment authorities to please catch and take away the dogs and pigs from our colony,” said Ms Pushpa Jain, another resident.

Mr M. Narasimha Rao says the situation is so bad that the parents in the colony run to the doctor if their children get a slight fever fearing it could be swine flu or even brain fever.