Srinagar: During the past six years, over 33000 people have been bitten by stray dogs in Srinagar, the government told the state legislature on Monday.
The ruling PDP-BJP government told the Legislature that 33238 dog bite cases were registered at an anti-rabies clinic at the SMHC hospital in Srinagar.
Replying to the call attention motion of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) MLC Zafar Iqbal Manhas, a minister said that 7,000 cases registered in 2012-13, followed by 6,041 in 2013-14, 4,917 in 2014-15, 5,100 in 2015-16 and 5,120 in 2016-17. Last year, 5060 cases were registered, the minister added. .
The flourishing of dogs is linked to abundant availability of energy-rich food, particularly offal and other non-vegetarian refuse.
There have been incidents of stray dogs chasing, attacking and biting school children, aged persons, pedestrians, morning walkers and two-wheeler riders.
The minister claimed that Srinagar city has seen a decrease in dog population to around 49,000 dogs as per 2011-census conducted by an independent agency–The Humane Society International—which had adopted the Lincoln index.
Previous survey by Srinagar Municipal Corporation had the number of canines at around 90000.
The government had said the floods of September 2014 also caused a decrease by around 5,000 dogs in Srinagar.
“SMC has been working on multiple strategies to control the dog menace within the city, mainly focusing on minimizing the availability of energy rich food and garbage on the roads and animal birth control programme,” the minister said.
The minister said that it was an established fact that multiplication rate of dogs was quite high but their survival rate mainly depends on the availability of food.
In 2013, a government-constituted expert committee had advocated curtailing food waste availability in the city to control the canine population.
“If the food is available in abundance, the multiplication and survival rate will be higher, if the availability of food waste is curtailed this will have a bearing on the life span and proliferation rate of stray dogs,” said the minister.
