GVMC torturing stray dogs to death

Visakhapatnam: The public health department vets perhaps are keen on killing the dogs rather than sterilising them under the animal birth control programme, ambitiously launched by the state government last year after reports of series of dog bites that caused loss of human lives.

Disturbing pictures of intestines coming out of the dogs that underwent sterilisation were sent to this correspondent by well- known voluntary organisation Visakha Society for Protection and Care of Animals founder president Pradeep Kumar Nath on Friday.

“A sterilised dog should be kept under observation for four days with good post operative care, but the corporation releases them the very next day at an unknown place instead of putting it in the same place from where it was picked. The operated dog has to take care on its own,’’ Nath said.

Expressing serious concern, Animal Welfare Board of India secretary M Ravi Kumar in a letter issued to the GVMC commissioner asked the corporation to immediately stop the animal birth control programme and hand it over to a reputed animal welfare organsation.

Secretary said the animal birth control programme conducted by the GVMC was worst devoid of any respect to the lives of street dogs. He said it was violation of dog rules of 2001 and several Supreme Court orders.

Nath said animal birth control is a missionary programme for VSPCA where the surgeries are conducted with care and love using the latest technology.

“Impressed with our work, Michael Bannasch, coordinator of the Shelter Medicine Programme, University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine; came all the way to VSPCA to bring new protocols and advanced equipment to substantially improve our animal birth control programme,’’ Nath said.

The government pays Rs 800 for each dog under animal birth control programme apart from transport and dog-catching expenses and the government doctors under the benami NGOs perform the surgery in a hurry in the early hours of the day and return to their regular work.

They do it in a hurry because for them stray dogs are not living animals but insects, Nath bemoaned.

Chief Medical Officer of GVMC Dr Hemant said they received a letter from Animal Welfare Board of India recently on the irregularities in animal birth control programme.

“We have deputed vets from the public health department and engaged the services of joint director of animal husbandry to inspect the places where the sterilisations are conducted,’’ the CMO said.

It was VSPCA which launched the animal birth control programme in the city in 1998 with its own funds at a time when the municipal corporation hired shooters to kill the dogs.

Nath obtained the High Court order and started his programme with the help coming from Animal Welfare Board of India. The GVMC authorities realising the importance of the animal birth control joined hands and started funding VSPCA from 2007 and stopped in 2010 in bid to conduct the programme with vets from the public health department.

As it could not conduct the surgeries as per the guidelines, the corporation resumed its ties with VSPCA in 2013. During the period from 2010 to 2013 the stray dog population went up due to the failure of the corporation.

VSPCA abandoned the animal birth control programme as the corporation failed to pay the bills for a period of four months.