Bhubaneswar, Dec. 9: A week after a four-year-old boy had been mauled to death by stray dogs in Puri, the urban civic body here has woken up to the occasion and intensified its dog catching and sterilisation drive.

Officials of the Bhuban-eswar Municipal Corporation recently held a preparatory meeting on dog sterilisation and decided to sterilise some 4,000 stray dogs within six months. They have also decided to keep the dogs at a shelter in Khurda during the sterilisation drive.

A senior civic official said they had written to the Khurda district collector requesting him to hand over suitable land where the shelter would be built.

"We are going to appoint more dog catchers to conduct the drives. We will also provide handholding support to the Puri Municipality in their dog sterilisation efforts," said the official.

An official said Bhubaneswar had the highest number of stray dogs in the state, the figure standing at a staggering 42,000.

Their population was around 20,000, according to the census of the veterinary department done in 2014. The civic body, along with the veterinary officials, is conducting around 300 sterilisation operations every month, which according to experts is far from enough.

Additional commissioner of the civic body Alok Kumar Kar, who is in charge of the animal birth control programme, said they were in talks with several voluntary organisations to take on a mass sterilisation drive of these animals.

"We are conducting nearly 300 operations every month and planning to increase the number in collaboration with voluntary organisations," said Kar.

The number of dog bite cases received by Capital Hospital here shows that stray dog menace continues in the city. According to the hospital data, it is receiving around 1,200 dog bite cases every month, which comes to 40 per day on an average. The stray dogs also cause a number of road accidents in the city almost every day.

"The civic body has failed in controlling the stray dog population. Bhubaneswar is being planned to be developed as a smart city. But, it is a shame for the city administration not to have a specific plan to tackle such a severe menace. It is high time for the administration to do something about it," said Saheed Nagar resident Binay Rout..