Dogs being taken away from the Cuttack railway station. Pictures by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, April 10: The municipal corporation today launched a special drive to tackle the canine problem at the city railway station following public outcry over stray dog menace.

A civic body official said the dog-catching squad had caught six stray dogs from the station premises and would release them after sterilisation within a week.

“We have conducted the drive to catch stray dogs on the platforms,” said city health officer P.K. Pradhan.

Such drives will continue to ensure that passengers do not face any problem, he said.

“We welcome such initiative by the civic body as there is a rise in the stray dog population near the station. Though we had tried to chase the dogs away, they returned after a couple of days,” said a railway employee.

Ten other stray dogs were also caught from various areas, including Ranihat and Odia Bazar, today. A lot of people at the bazar said at least seven cases of dog bites had been reported at their locality in the past five days.

“We were facing problems in moving out as a dog had become violent in our locality. Only after repeated complaints, the dog-catching squad took nearly five stray dogs away from the locality today,” said D. Krishna Rao, a local resident.

Earlier, a lot of passengers demanded urgent measures to free the station from the canine menace. Nearly 15 stray dogs were causing problems for the passengers at the station.

“The problem of stray dogs had assumed serious proportions when I visited the station last month as the animals were found almost everywhere,” said Nagendra Pradhan, a resident of Nayabazar.

Pradhan said the station had become a safe haven for the stray dogs because of availability of food and open access from various locations.

A corporation official said the dog sterilisation programme was being launched with assistance from an NGO in the city. There are nearly 50,000 stray dogs in Cuttack. Of these, around 24,000 dogs have been sterilised after the programme was launched in 2003. On an average over 1,000 dogs are sterilised every year.