Ludhiana: Almost one year has passed since the completion of the agreement with the current firm handling the animal birth control program for controlling the population of stray dogs in the city, but authorities are yet to float fresh tenders to hire another firm. The current firm has been given an extension by the officials to avoid the closure of the ongoing drive, which could lead to an increase in the number of stray dogs once again. The authorities claimed that now the rate will be revised from Rs 1,200 to Rs 1,650, and perhaps that is why the officials are avoiding floating tenders at the moment.The animal birth control (ABC) programme is considered to be an important thing for the city because for almost ten years the authorities have been spending money on the sterilization of stray dogs to control the population. More than one lakh stray dogs have been sterilized, but in the absence of proper planning, the program could not bring much results. The officials claimed that now they have proposed to install a chip inside stray dogs which will be sterilized to keep a check on the dogs as well. It will also help in tracking the stray dogs afterwards.The officials claimed that earlier they have faced allegations that without sterilization money was spent on the project, and when there will be cross-checking of facts through this chip, then there will be no allegations. The medical officer of MC, Vipal Malhotra, said the proposal is ready and they are waiting for the approval from the authorities for floating the tenders. He said they will try to remove shortcomings which were there in the previous tenders.Meanwhile, the residents continued complaining about the menace of stray dogs. Rajan Mahajan, a resident of Civil City, said that despite ongoing sterilization, the number of stray dogs is increasing continuously. He said there is a need to do sterilization at a fast pace; only then will there be a complete solution to this problem, and for that, at least four firms should be hired at once. Another resident from Yash Colony, Pooja Sharma, said that stray dogs keep barking at night and even trouble people coming to the locality by chasing vehicles. She said this problem should be tackled at the earliest.
