MARGAO
Can the newly-elected Margao Municipal body bring a turn-around in the Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme in the commercial capital?
Every time, a new Municipal chairperson takes over the reigns of the council after five years, he or she makes it a point to visit the dog shelter where stray animals are sterilized and isolated in the cages before their release.
Newly-appointed Municipal Chairperson Lyndon Pereira too is scheduled to inspect the stray dog shelter as the ABC programme in the city seemed to have gone off track for want of support from the Municipal Council.
Consider this. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) inked between the MMC and the Animal rights NGO, South Goa Welfare Trust for Animals had lapsed on December 30, 2020. The fate of the MoU remains unknown, even as the NGO has continued with the ABC programme in the city since six months.
The MoU mandates the civic body to pay the NGO fees for the sterilization and ABC programme, but the NGO has claimed that the civic body is yet to settle the bills since April last year.
That’s not all. The dog shelter was built around a decade ago with around 30 cages. The number of cages have remained the same despite the fact that the NGO has been insisting on increasing the number of cages to meet the growing requirements.
In fact, the demand to increase the number of cages to 100 has gone unresolved till date. Request for a small plot of land to dispose of the carcass of stray animals has also remained unfulfilled till date.
Incidentally, a MMC official conceded that the council does not have its own shelter, and there is acute scarcity of space in the municipal jurisdiction. “The quarters at the veterinary hospital at Sonsodo are vacant, this place could be ideal to handle the dog related activity”, the official said, adding that a proposal can be sent to the Collector and the Director AHVS, to lease out the said quarters to the council.
The Animal Birth Control (Dogs) Rules, 2001 had come into force long ago, but the Council is yet to constitute the monitoring committee.
This committee has a role to play planning and management of dog control programme in accordance with these rules, including powers to issue instructions for catching, transportation, sheltering, sterilisation, vaccination, treatment and release of sterilized vaccinated or treated dogs.
The dog catching van procured around a decade ago has been giving nightmares to the NGO involved in the ABC.The MMC has proposed to procure a new dog catching van now.
The MMC sanitary section has now proposed to the Chief Officer to explore the possibility of roping in another NGO to handle the ABC programme.
Chief Officer Agnelo Fernandes informed that his office did not act on the proposal for the simple reason that the elected council was not in place. “Since the council is now headed by an elected chairperson, let the body take a call on how to proceed with the ABC programme”, he added.
