SDMC seeks land from DDA to set up dog sterilisation centres

The South Delhi Municipal Corporation today asked the Delhi Development Authority to provide land to set up more sterilisation centres in its bid to curb the menace of stray dogs.
Inaugurating a new dog sterilisation centre at Bijwasan, South Delhi Mayor Shyam Sharma said that the civic body has requested the DDA to provide around 250 sqm of land in all four zones - South, Central, West and Najafgarh - to set up more dog sterilisation centres.
The Bijwasan centre, built at a cost of Rs 23 lakh and having a capacity to sterilise 25 dogs per day, became operational late last year and was awaiting inauguration.

"The SDMC aims to sterilise 1.25 lakh stray dogs per year to contain their number and curb the menace of stray dogs in its area," Sharma said.
The civic body is also going to the make the centres in Mundela, Nangli and Masudpur operational soon.
As per a recent survey by global NGO, Humane Society International, the number of stray dogs in south Delhi has been pegged at 1,89,285. Of these 40.3 per cent male and 27.8 per cent female were found sterilised.

Terming sterilisation of stray dogs as a challenge, the SDMC has decided to increase the number of dog sterilisation centre to 14.

At present, the civic body has nine sterilisation centres out of which four -- Lajpat Nagar, Tughlaqabad, Tilangpur Kotla and Ghazipur -- are owned and managed by it.
The rest are commissioned to NGOs, however sterilisation at all the nine facilities are being done by the NGOs.
SDMC has begun the work of construction of a huge sterilisation facility at Sector 29 in Dwarka.
The SDMC Commissioner, in a report, had said that there were a total of 32,216 stray dogs in central zone, 29,952 in Najafgarh, 59,435 in South, and 67,682 dogs in West zone.
SDMC had started the stray dog census on August 28, seeking to measure the progress of the sterilisation programme.