LMC blames NGOs, activists think otherwise over dogs’ sterilisation

LUCKNOW :The Lucknow Municipal Corporation’s (LMC) animal birth control programme could never take off due to pressure from NGOs and animal rights activists, say LMC officials.

“In 2010, an NGO ‘Animal Ashram’ was given the responsibility of animal birth control in the city. But it failed in the task, and since the NGO belonged to influential people, LMC never dared to tell them about their duties. The NGO performed only 30 sterilisations in a month and that to with the help of LMC’s dog catchers and infrastructure,” said Dr AK Rao, chief veterinary officer, LMC.

Rao added: “Only 360 sterilisations were performed in the city, which has more than 60,000 dogs. It was of no use. Not only that, when LMC wanted to perform sterilisations in Kanha Upvan, the NGO opposed it. The NGO also stopped LMC’s dog catchers from doing their duty. We filed FIR against the NGO twice for causing obstruction in official work and beating up LMC staff.”

Rao further said: “The NGO was marginalized when ‘Jeevashraya’ took over the control of Kanha Upvan. They started performing

sterilisations in Siddharth hospital of Kanha Upvan and did a much better job than ‘Animal Ashram’, which was removed in 2017. Now, we are going to float a global tender for sterilisation of dogs and hope to perform 2,000 sterilisations a month in a new hospital developed near Indira Nagar and at Kanha Upvan.

Amit Sehgal, an animal rights activist, however, blamed LMC for failure of the sterilization programme. He said, “Why LMC is blaming NGOs for the failure of the sterilisation programme when it agreed, in writing, to give the sterilisation work to the NGO for performing only one sterilisation in a day. All the things were in the contract. According to the contract, LMC had to provide infrastructure for sterilisation so why they are cribbing now. In fact, ‘Animal Ashram has done a wonderful job under the given circumstances.”

He also said LMC had always been a poor planner. “They knew about the seriousness of issue for the last many years but never allowed any funds for animal birth control,” he added.

Animal behaviour expert VK Joshi said, “For a city like Lucknow, sterlisation of dogs is required in every ward. Sterilisation of only 2000 dogs in a month will not solve the problem. We need to sterilise at least 10,000 dogs in a month in Lucknow and its periphery. Or else population of dogs will keep on increasing.”

Joshi said “We have to find other solutions too, like adoptions by NGOs who fight for dogs on streets. The NGOs must be given a target to adopt dogs.”