A dog at the veterinary hospital at Buxi Bazaar in Cuttack. Picture by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, Oct. 8: The civic body has decided to intensify its dog sterilisation programme to put a check on canine population in the city limits.

The Cuttack Municipal Corporation plans to upgrade its existing infrastructure to intensify the dog sterilisation programme by building a new dog pound on the veterinary hospital campus at Buxi Bazaar. The pound will have 20 kennels and an operation theatre.

Recently, the corporation drew flak from the state government for not being able to utilise Rs 10 lakh released by it for carrying out capacity-building measures to intensify the sterilisation programme.

The money was released in 2011. Though a survey was initially done to construct the dog pound, the project failed to take off allegedly because of lack of co-ordination between various government departments and the civic body.

“We have been asked by the government to construct the dog pound, which will be done at the earliest,” said city health officer P.K. Pradhan.

Rise in stray dog population in the city is causing severe inconvenience to its residents, especially in areas such as Deewan Bazaar, Sutahaat, Mangalabag and Badambadi. There are more than 45,000 stray dogs in the city.

Pradhan said the funds released by the state government would also be utilised for purchasing a dog-catching vehicle. The existing kennel at Sartol pound will also be repaired.

Though there are 75 kennels at the Sartol dog pound, only 43 are functional, while the remaining 32 sheds are in a dilapidated condition. Not more than 40 dogs can be sterilised in a week at the existing facility at Sartol because of infrastructure problems.

“Only about 150 dogs are sterilised every month and around 1,700 dogs a year, creating a huge gap between the stray dog population and sterilisation rate,” said Udaynath Tripathy, co-ordinator of Mahila Vikash Samiti, an NGO that runs the dog pound.

Tripathy said the slow rate of sterilisation drive was also due to non-availability of government veterinary doctors.

“We have requested the corporation to either allow us to conduct the programme with the help of private doctors or to rope in retired government doctors to speed up the sterilisation rate,” he said.