The Supreme Court took cognisance of the alarming rise in dog bite incidents across institutional areas and directed that strays be relocated from educational centres, hospitals, and bus stations to designated shelter homes after due sterilisation and vaccination in accordance with the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023. Though the judgement is good in intent, it is short on practicality. With millions of stray dogs roaming India’s streets and localities, there simply won’t be enough land or finance available to set up shelters or find personnel to tend to them. We will cry till kingdom come about controlling the stray canine population, but nothing will change until drastic measures are taken. Culling/euthanasia is practised in Turkey, Japan, Morocco, Romania, the UK, the USA, Russia, Switzerland and other countries, resulting in a drastic reduction of the stray population and almost zero rabies cases.
Thirty-seven lakh dog bite cases (i.e. 10,000 cases per day) were reported in India during 2024, a 70% increase from 2022. There have been around 3,82,000 incidents of dog bites recorded per month in the first half of 2025. Strays account for an alarming 96% of rabies cases in India — no surprise here since their population has breached 1.5 crore, according to the latest estimates. What we need are hard, practical measures and not to be distracted by bleeding-heart animal lovers or that fashionable breed called dog parents. Even foreign tourists have started avoiding India after hearing horror stories of the stray menace in the country. It is high time we took the bull by the horns.
