Artists in the city have come together to help out animals in distress. Jogen Chowdhury, Wasim Kapoor, Bijon Chaudhury, Sanatan Dinda and Jahar Dasgupta have donated 20 art works to Love-N-Care for Animals.

The south Calcutta-based NGO aims to raise Rs 5 lakh by selling the paintings and set up an open-air animal care centre in Ultadanga’s Telengabagan with the money.

The NGO will organise an exhibition-cum-sale of the paintings at Academy of Fine Arts from February 15 to 21.

Sushmita Roy, of Love-N-Care for Animals, said the organisation had approached the artists for help to build an open-air animal shelter in north Calcutta. The Calcutta Municipal Corporation has given the organisation a plot for the shelter.

Roy said the centre, which will house an advanced veterinary clinic, will sterilise stray dogs and also administer anti-rabies vaccines to them.

Mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya and chief municipal health officer (CMOH) Deb Dwaipayan Chattopadhyay have urged the NGO to start administering anti-rabies vaccines to people bitten by dogs.

Love-N-Care for Animals now runs a hospital for stray animals in Shibrampur, in Behala, where over 100 ailing dogs and around 250 kittens have been treated.

“We also rescue wild animals in danger and hand them over to the forest department after giving them first-aid. Recently, we have rescued langurs, snakes, owls and a Siberian heron,” said Roy.

The civic health department has recently handed over to the NGO its kennel at Entally, which had remained closed for over three years. The kennel was reopened on Sunday after renovation. It has the capacity to sterilise 60 dogs.

CMOH Chattopadhyay said the only way to curb the burgeoning stray dog population was to sterilise the animals.