MARGAO
World Rabies Day was celebrated on September 28. This year’s theme centred on “Breaking Rabies Boundaries”, calling for innovative strategies and collaboration across various sectors and regions, highlighting the importance of integrating human, animal, and environmental health efforts.
Welcome to the Commercial Capital which plays host to a sizeable stray dog population. Here, the Margao Municipal Council had couple of months ago inked an agreement with an animal welfare organisation to carry forward the Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme.
It’s another matter that outgoing Margao Municipal Chief Officer Gaurish Sankhwalkar in his wisdom has dispensed with the mandatory provision of complying with the codal formalities by inviting Expression of Interest (EoI) from animal welfare organisations to take forward the city’s ABC programme. In fact, the outgoing Chief Officer has awarded the work of the ABC programme to the agency, with which the MMC had surprisingly dragged its feet to ink a fresh agreement after the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) expired way back in the year 2020.
Having awarded the work order to the animal welfare NGO, a host of questions have come to haunt the Margao Municipal Council, more so when the stray dog population is rising by the day as evident by the presence of the dogs across the city.
One, how are the citizens supposed to contact or convey to the civic body or the NGO in the absence of a dedicated mobile number or helpline announced by the civic body. Or, is a helpline or number in place, but is still popularised by the municipality through its councillors.
Has the MMC provided a new dog catching van for the NGO to transport the strays caught from the city streets and thoroughfare or is the NGO been provided a makeshift vehicle equipped with cages.
Land has been an issue plaguing MMC’s ABC programme over the years. While inking the new agreement, has the civic body addressed the space crunch issue affecting the programme or is the NGO expected to function from the existing dog shelter, set up around a decade ago.
That’s not all. Last year, Mission Rabies along with other organisations had sterilised over 2,000 dogs in a month-long camp at Margao, throwing up questions over the efficacy of the MMC’s ABC programme in the city. Residents in the government quarters at Pajifond have been questioning the MMC’s ABC programme when the population of strays shows no signs of coming down. In fact, residents complained that a canine has given birth to puppies atop a building, raising questions how the population of strays have not shown an appreciable decline when the MMC has engaged an NGO to take the ABC programme to its logical conclusion.
