Fighting a dogged battle

Rabies

This is a struggle, rather a war, which none of the sides have won. Over the past decades, at the national level, when civil society activism has often stood up for protecting every living organism and being, it has often been at loggerheads with the policy makers and authorities for its ambitious, over-reaching attempts on the issue of street dog welfare.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that roughly 36 per cent of the world’s rabies deaths occur in India each year, most of those when children come into contact with infected dogs. The WHO estimates the dog population to be around 25 million in India. WHO aims to eliminate rabies in Asia by 2020, but this won’t be possible as long as India remains on the danger list. According to WHO, India would need to vaccinate 70 percent of the total dog population in a very short span and maintain immune coverage through control of dog movement.

In the Deccani capital, the issue has not created lesser furore than elsewhere. In a recent RTI response, GHMC admitted that it spends around Rs. 25 crore on sterilisation with little results. Residents in colonies and drivers on different roads of Hyderabad continue being chased by stray dogs, which number around 44100. Anti- dog campaigners put the figure at easily double the number.

Even then, the Corporation ends up spending around Rs. 5000 per canine which is very high said a Lok Satta official who had put up the query to GHMC under the RTI Act. The unanswered issue here is why the numbers keep increasing and what is being done to control it. On this vexed issue, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, fierce debates have raged across various forums, not excluding the social media about what is to be done with the growing population of stray dogs.

If at the ‘Paradise on Earth’ dogs have had a free run rummaging through food wastes and chasing the citizens and mauling them at will, in Kerala, a leading industrialist, Kochouseph Chittilappilly, spearheading a stray-dog free movement even went on a 24-hour hunger strike in the state. His contention: rabies vaccination companies were backing ‘fake’ animal lovers who were against the eradication of stray dogs. “The highest sale of rabies vaccination is in India and we suspect that a lobby is working behind the animal lovers’ movement.

This lobby may be bribing Maneka Gandhi’s office, I don’t know,” he added. The appointment of a Supreme Court committee, which has wanted a detailed look at the rising calls for merciless culling of the strays in Kerala, had identified the rising garbage on the roads as the main reason. Meanwhile, the NDA government, hard-selling its Swacch Bharat initiative, has decided to rope in the youths of the country, through its next set of thematic drives.

"In the first phase, NSS, NCC and eco-clubs will join hands with youth volunteers and help sensitise citizens and slum dwellers about safe sanitary practices and decentralized solid waste management," an official said here. He said that the key areas of focus would lie on the youth volunteers to undertake cleanliness drives in various locations of the cities, upload pictures at swachhbharat.mygov.in and encourage the youth at large to take 'swachhata' pledges n the mygov portal.

The second phase will be from August 15 to August 31. The ministry will be reaching out to all sports icons who are the Swachh Bharat ambassadors, and sports clubs, to take up special cleanliness drives in their cities. They would participate in "Swachhata runs" along with the citizens and conduct cleanliness drives in sports stadiums. If cleanliness in civic spaces can improve the situation, it can well be the much needed relief for Indian citizens. This of course, calls for a sustained and all-encompassing cooperation from everyone.

By K Naresh Kumar