Patiala: NGO told to suspend dogs’ sterilisation after Maneka’s letter

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The Deputy Commissioner said on Friday that the operation to sterilise dogs has been suspended and officials have been asked to check the credentials of the NGO as well as its members. He also clarified that the contract was infact given by the municipal corporation.

Maneka, in the letter to Divisional Commissioner AS Pannu, said: “The NGO was given the contract in a jiffy. No tenders were floated. The NGO is not registered with the Animal Welfare Board. It claims its head office is in Pant Nagar in Uttarakhand. It is my constituency. I got the address verified which is fake. Moreover, the veterinarian is not even a surgeon. He is a fresh graduate. I will get his license cancelled.”

She further wrote: “I did not ask the vet to go to Pakistan. It is a wrong accusation. My number two in my NGO is a Muslim. I have high regards for all communities.”

On what pushed her to call up the NGO members rather than asking officials to look into the matter, the BJP leader said she wanted to hear their side of the story.

The minister said that the contract to sterilise 5,000 stray dogs in Patiala was given to the NGO without floating any tender. The NGO, a two-member organisation, has been catching dogs, and performing operations on them without anesthesia as it saves them Rs 250 on each dog, Maneka said, adding, the Patiala administration is paying the organisation Rs 1,000 for every dog.

“I have got the proof that they left several dogs without stitching and with intestines sticking out the day after the surgery while as per norms the dogs are to be provided care and shelter for five days after the procedure… Many dogs have reportedly died in Patiala,” the minister said.

Sukhwinder Singh, president of the NGO, however, told The Indian Express that his group was following proper procedure. “We have been using the government veterinary hospital,’’ he said.

While Dr Ali stayed away from the media, Sukhwinder alleged that Maneka told him that the procedure being followed to sterilise dogs was wrong and it was not Pakistan where they could do anything like that. “If you had to do it like this, then you should go there,” Singh quoted the minister as saying.

Patiala mayor Amarinder Bajaj admitted that the civic body had not floated any tender. The NGO had, as a pilot project, sterilised 100 dogs for the administration following which the corporation asked it to sterilise 1,000 more dogs a month ago, the mayor said.