MARGAO
Is the contentious and burning issue of stray dogs not on the priority list of the Margao Municipal Council?
If one goes by the ground reality in the commercial capital, with the stray dog population on the rise, the civic body has failed even to ink a fresh Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to address the issue.
Otherwise, consider this. The MoU signed by the civic body with an NGO to take care of the city's stray dogs lapsed on December 31, 2020, during the five-year tenure of the outgoing civic body.
The issue remained in cold storage between January 1, 2021, and April 2021 with Civic Babus maintaining that an elected municipality was not in place.
May 27, 2022, saw the Margao Civic Alliance (MCA) returning to power in the civic body, with two-time City Father Lyndon Pereria making it to the Chairperson’s seat.
Lyndon has finally stepped down from office after occupying the post for 15 months, but the stray dog issue remains unresolved to date.
Leave alone taking the Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme to the logical conclusion, the Margao civic body has not even inked a fresh MoU with NGOs working in the field of controlling the stray dog population.
That’s not all. Even the NGO, whose stint with the civic body had officially ended on December 31, 2020, is yet to receive the full and final payments.
In fact, a solution to the contentious issues of the stray dog seemed to have eluded the Margao Municipal Council to date for reasons best known to the City Fathers.
When The Goan called up Chairperson Lyndon to shed light on why the MoU was not signed during his tenure, leave alone resolving the menace, he said the council has received a couple of proposals from the NGOs to take up the ABC programme in the city. “We did try to address the issue in the last 15 months. We even had a power-point presentation in the civic body by an NGO to address the problem, but somehow the process could not be taken to the logical conclusion,” he said.
Lyndon added: “Just before I put in my papers, the council has received a proposal from activists working in the field of strays. I am confident that my successor will take up the matter to the logical end.”
To a question on the delay in the payments of bills to the existing NGO, Lyndon said he has got part of the payments cleared during his tenure. “We have cleared the balance bills and I hope the office clears the payment to the NGO,” he added.
What’s interesting to note is that while the MMC’s MoU with the NGO had lapsed on December 31, 2020, the same NGO had been trying its best to manage the ABC programme in the city for almost 20 months now.
Inquiries by The Goan has only revealed that the MMC has not taken any steps or measure to increase the cage strength at the dog shelter, which opened around a decade now. That’s not all. Other logistics, such as the dog catching van and the dog catchers, had not taken pace with the growing requirements in the city.
