MARGAO
Even as the stray dog population continues to rise in the commercial capital, there are no visible signs of the Margao Municipal Council reviving the derailed Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) inked by the civic body with a city-based animal welfare body remains buried in the record books of the Municipal building.
To make matters worse, the NGO, which has been submitting bills for payment to the civic body since March last year, has been officially communicated to the group that the bills will be cleared only if they are vetted and certified by the veterinary officers.
This has only raised questions as to how the NGO will get the veterinary officers certify the sterilizations carried out over the last one year. Questions are also raised whether the NGO has preserved the organs to facilitate the vet doctors to certify the sterilizations or whether the officials will certify the bill based on the reports compiled by the NGO.
Given the situation, the NGO is keeping its fingers crossed whether the reports compiled of the sterilizations will be enough for the veterinary doctors to verify the claims before the same is submitted to the Margao Municipal Council for payments.
The Goan understands that the civic body has dashed off a letter to the NGO drawing its attention to the decision taken by the MMC officials to approve the payments only after the claims of sterilization are certified by a veterinary doctor.
The Margao Municipal Council had inked the Memorandum of Understanding with the city-based NGO in controversial circumstances by not complying with the codal formalities without inviting the Expression of Interest in March last year.
A year down the line, the MMC has not cleared a single bill submitted by the NGO for the work carried out at the Sonsodo dog shelter. The MMC has till date not made available the dog catching van to the NGO till date. With no vehicle and dog catchers at the disposal of the NGO, the ABC programme has indeed come under the scanner of Madgavkars.
“Despite the civic body not making any payments since the time the MOU was signed last year, we are carrying out the job of sterilization at the Sonsodo dog shelter. The dog shelter is presently packed with stray and injured dogs. People come and leave dogs and puppies near the shelter in the night”, informed a dog lover.
Incidentally, the ABC programme seemed not on the agenda of the Margao City Fathers and the powers that be controlling the civic body. For, it is an open secret that Margao’s ABC programme is down in the dumps, but no one has come across any demand from any quarters to streamline the ABC programme in the commercial capital.
