The New Town authorities will start an anti-rabies vaccination and neutering drive for stray dogs in all three action areas in February, an official of the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) said.
NKDA provides civic amenities to New Town. It also runs a cattle-and-dog pound-cum-treatment shelter near the Unitech crossing.
An NKDA official said there are more than 4,000 stray dogs in New Town, quoting an estimate drawn from a survey.
The urban local body has set a target to vaccinate all stray dogs and neuter the male ones, the official said.
Like in other parts of Kolkata, heated arguments between dog lovers and others are common in many localities in New Town, as many fear dog bites could lead to rabies.
The World Health Organisation website mentions: “Once clinical symptoms appear, rabies is virtually 100% fatal. In up to 99% of cases, domestic dogs are responsible for rabies virus transmission to humans.”
In New Town, trouble broke out in gated communities like Tata Avenida and Uniworld City over this issue. Also, there have been arguments among residents over stray dogs in several blocks, including BC and BF.
Another senior NKDA official said they are in the process of hiring an agency that will provide an end-to-end service, from catching stray dogs to vaccinating them and sterilising the males in the NKDA-run dog pound-cum-treatment centre.
“There will be teams to catch stray dogs. The animals will be taken to the NKDA-run animal shelter where the vaccines will be administered. The male dogs will be sterilised. We will keep a check on the quality of vaccines used, the medicines used after the neutering procedure and the quality of food given to the animals,” the official
said.
Several NKDA officials said that if an overwhelming majority of street dogs could be vaccinated, the fear of contracting rabies after dog bites will be considerably reduced.
Radhika Bose, a member of the committee that runs Ashari, an animal hospital, said it must be ensured that the agency that is hired for the vaccination-sterilisation drive follows the guidelines laid down by the Animal Welfare Board of India.
“The process should be transparent and the focus should be on ethical sterilisation and the dogs should be handled with care. The agency must tap into the knowledge of local dog feeders as they have information about strays in a particular neighbourhood,” Bose, also a member of the Animal Welfare Board of India, told Metro.