Over 128K people bitten by stray dogs in Mumbai in 2024: Eknath Shinde

More than 1.28 lakh people in Mumbai were bitten by stray dogs in 2024, raising concerns about the safety of citizens and prompting authorities to undertake measures like sterilisation and vaccination of free-roaming canines to control their population.

This information was shared by Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde in the state legislative council on Friday in a written reply to queries by MLCs Sunil Shinde, Vasant Khandelwal, Sandip Joshi and others.

These legislators raised concerns about the increasing number of stray dogs in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) limits and a similar menace in Nagpur.

Shinde stated that more than 9,400 people were bitten in Nagpur, the second capital of Maharashtra, in 2024.

He said that a survey conducted by the BMC via Human Society International, as per the Animal Welfare Board rules, revealed that the number of stray dogs had come down from 95,172 in 2014 to 90,757 in 2024.

In Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) limits, 9,427 people were bitten by stray dogs, while 1,28,252 people suffered dog bites in Mumbai as per the 2024 figures, Shinde added.

Several steps and programmes, like sterilisation and vaccination of stray dogs and rabies eradication, are being undertaken to control their population, he said.

Similarly, an independent portal has also been started to resolve citizens' grievances related to the issue.

Land parcels are being searched to set up shelters for aggressive and rabid dogs, he said.

These figures are factored in in over 30 lakh cases of dog bites reported across Maharashtra in the last six years, an alarming number that averages to approximately 1,369 such incidents every day across the state.

Shinde had told the legislative assembly on Wednesday that there has been a significant increase in dog bite cases both in rural and urban parts of the state. Besides these cases, as many as 30 people have died due to rabies between 2021 and 2023.