Paws Up, Delhi! MCD Ready to Conduct First Community Dog Census in 14 Years

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi is entirely in the dark about the community dog population in the city. The last survey was conducted on the population of community dogs in 2009, and the number was around 560,000. 

In 2016, South MCD put effort into assessing the number of community canines, but unfortunately, only four zones were covered. At that time, they found more than 1,89,000 community dogs in four zones, from which 27.8% of the females and 40.3% of the male dogs were sterilized.

As per experts, after 14 years, the canine population will have immensely increased. 

 A senior MCD’s veterinary department officer stated, “We have taken steps towards drafting the initial bid documents to invite requests for proposals for dog census in the city. At the end of this year, we aim to have a better view of the population and distribution of community dogs across the city’s 12 wards.”

Vijay Goel, Former Union Minister, is also organizing a seminar to find a promising solution to this issue on May 10. He said,  “There are around 6,00,00 community canines in Delhi. The MCD should have carried out street dogs sterilization on the correct scale.“

On the other hand, an animal welfare expert, Gauri Maulekhi, focused on auditing the existing 16 animal birth control centers and assessing their performance. 

She said,” We already submitted a performance audit report of animal birth control centers to the commission. We have found rampant corruption and cruelty in most of these centers, which is making dog population management challenging.”

Community dogs act as guards and keep the rodent population under control, but some dogs behave violently and harm the residents. It can be due to abusive behavior towards street dogs. The extermination or relocation of these street canines is not a viable solution due to legal restrictions in place against both actions.