Now microchips will be installed in street dogs to track bites, sterilisation in Chandigarh

“As of now we are bringing 1,000 microchips on a pilot basis. It shall just not help us in doing the census digitally, but also will provide us all the information about the street dog and can even help us in tracking,” the mayor said.

“Also, in case there is a dog bite, it can help us know which dog was involved in the act,” he added.

Municipal Commissioner Anindita Mitra stated that the AI-based program will help in dog tracking and sterilisation. “I too have put a microchip in my pet dog so that we don’t lose it and can track it. This will also help in keeping a proper record and in dog census. We can also know if a contractor has done the sterilisation. To the best of my knowledge, Pune municipal corporation had implemented this and many pet owners too install these chips,” Mitra said.

The chip shall be costing Rs 500 per dog which means for 1,000 chips, the project will cost around 5 lakh.

Officials said AI imaging of street dogs will also be possible now.

Meanwhile, senior BJP councillor Mahesh Inder Singh Sidhu said that efficacy of this procedure in dogs is not known. “This is a new thing, efficacy of which is not known, and so is proposed to be done on 1,000 dogs initially. Upon my query, the officials said that this installation is according to the norms and is allowed to be done for dogs,” he added.

The meeting of F&CC was held on Monday under the chairmanship of the mayor and was attended by Mitra and other members .
As per the previous census, there were about 12,000 street dogs in the city.

The issue of managing street dogs has been quite pertinent during the Lok sabha elections as well with residents asking their prospective MP to take the issue as first priority.

The city has been grappling with dog bites on a daily basis even as the civic body has been claiming of carrying out sterilisation extensively.

In less than 2 years, Rs 1.26 cr spent on sterilisation

An amount of Rs 1.26 crore has been spent in 21 months for sterilisation of 7,412 street dogs. Of the 4,923 street dogs sterilised at ABC Centre in Sector 38 west, 2,263 are males and 2,660 are females. The sterilisation is being carried out at Rs 1,700 per dog at ABC centre in Sector 38 (West). This data pertains to June 27, 2022 to April 30, 2024.

Apart from this, from October 21, 2023 till April 2024, an additional 2,489 street dogs were sterilised at ABC Centre Raipur Kalan, of which 1,237 are male dogs and 1252 are female, and Rs 1,700 per dog was charged to conduct the procedure.

Civic officials claim that they have sterilised 28,218 street dogs since April 2015, of which 14,366 are males and 13,852 are females.

From April 5, 2015 till June 2017, as many as 9,114 street dogs were sterilised by SPCA Maharashtra, an NGO. From August 2017 to September 2019, 4,971 street dogs were sterilised by an MP-based firm.

The sterilisation process then took a halt and restarted from September 2020. From September 2020 till November 2021, 6,721 dogs were sterilised, of which 3,599 were male and 3,122 were female.

After a break again, the process began from June 27, 2022 and 4,923 have been sterilised till April 30,2024.