MAPUSA
The State appears to be tackling its stray-dog problem through several separate systems – but without a single consolidated picture of how large the problem actually is.
Government data showing a year-wise compilation of complaints received by village panchayats since January 2022 shows a striking number of “Nil” entries for stray-dog attacks, nuisance, chasing of pedestrians and vehicles and dog-bite incidents.
Yet the same records also show continuing vaccination and Animal Birth Control (ABC) activity in several areas, suggesting that the absence of complaints does not necessarily mean the absence of stray dogs or public concern.
The data points to a fragmented response in which different agencies are seeing different parts of the problem.
Panchayats and municipalities largely become the first point of contact for complaints. Veterinary authorities deal with vaccination and animal-health interventions, NGOs undertake sterilisation and vaccination programmes, while police enter the picture in cases involving dog owners, illegal keeping of animals or potentially dangerous dogs.
The result is a collection of separate records rather than one state-wide database tracking the stray-dog population, sterilisation coverage, vaccination coverage, attacks, bites, nuisance complaints and repeat problem locations.
The official compilation contains numerous panchayats reporting no complaints across several years.
In Pernem, for instance, Virnoda panchayat has recorded as having received no complaints, while the status specifically notes that ABC and vaccination drives continued and that there were no pending issues.
In Canacona too, multiple panchayats have repeated “NIL” entries across the complaint categories.
A complaint register can tell the government how many people approached a particular panchayat. It cannot, by itself, establish how many stray dogs are present, how many have been sterilised or vaccinated, how many incidents went unreported, or whether residents simply chose not to approach the panchayat.
This distinction becomes important because the same official records show that some local bodies continue to seek or undertake animal-control interventions despite reporting few or no formal complaints.
The issue, therefore, may not simply be whether Goa has a stray-dog menace. The bigger administrative concern is whether Goa has a reliable system to measure it.
What Goa needs is a common database linking these separate streams – complaints, bites, attacks, sterilisation, vaccination and population estimates – so that policymakers can identify hotspots, measure whether ABC programmes are working and determine where intervention is actually required.
Will Oct survey finally collate stray-dog data?
The October 1 state-wide animal survey could offer the State an opportunity to address a less visible problem behind its stray-dog menace – the absence of a single, consolidated database.
While panchayats, municipalities and other agencies maintain records of stray-dog complaints and related interventions, the information remains scattered across different authorities.
Complaint figures may indicate trouble spots, but do not necessarily provide a clear state-wide picture of the actual animal population or the status of sterilisation and vaccination.
The key question now is whether the new exercise will simply produce another headcount or bring these scattered numbers together into one reliable state-wide database.
Ideally, the exercise should establish not just the number of dogs but also their location, sterilisation and vaccination status and recurring complaint hotspots. Such a database could help the State identify areas where sterilisation and vaccination programmes need to be intensified and track whether interventions are actually reducing the problem.
