Every morning, as dawn breaks over the lanes of Jammu and Kashmir, a quiet emergency unfolds. Children tighten their grip on their schoolbags, elderly residents mentally map their routes to avoid known dog packs, and shopkeepers hesitate before unlocking their shutters, scanning the street for any sign of a lurking threat.
These are not irrational fears; they are daily survival tactics in a region where, on average, every ten minutes, another person is bitten by a dog. This is the arithmetic of official government data, and it reveals a public health crisis of staggering proportions—one that demands the immediate attention of every parent, policymaker, and medical professional in Jammu and Kashmir.
The numbers are not just alarming; they are accelerating at a terrifying pace. Between 2022 and 2025, the Union Territory recorded over 2.12 lakh dog bite cases, but the trajectory tells the real story. Cases surged from 22,110 in 2022 to 34,664 in 2023, then jumped to 51,027 in 2024, and crossed 55,312 in 2025.
Jammu and Kashmir now records 425 dog bites per 100,000 people annually—nearly three times the rate reported in Delhi. That translates to an average of 150 people being bitten every single day. With 23 stray dogs for every 1,000 people, J&K holds the second-highest stray dog density in the country.
How did we arrive at this precipice? The answer lies not in inevitability but in three interconnected failures, all rooted in choices we have consistently refused to make. The first and most fundamental driver is waste management. Open garbage dumps have become the primary engine of stray dog population growth. Wherever food is freely available, dogs congregate, breed exponentially, and survive. Rapid urbanization has created vast, unregulated waste accumulation sites that act as permanent feeding grounds for feral populations. Without addressing this infrastructure collapse, no population control programme can succeed.
The second failure is the systemic neglect of the Animal Birth Control programme. India’s ABC Rules, mandated by law and endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO), require municipal bodies to systematically sterilize and vaccinate stray dogs through a Catch-Neuter-Vaccinate-Return (CNVR) approach. Yet, between June 2023 and September 2025, J&K managed to sterilize and vaccinate just 48,998 stray dogs against an estimated population of over 1.5 lakh—a fraction of what is needed even to halt growth, let alone reverse it.
More revealing still: official data placed before the Legislative Assembly confirmed that only 935 dogs were sterilized in Srinagar in the entire year of 2025. In many districts, the ABC programme has collapsed before it ever meaningfully began, stalled by administrative delays, expired contracts, and slow tendering processes. The third failure occurs after a bite has already occurred, when the post-exposure prophylaxis — the vaccine course that stands between a dog bite and a rabies fatality, is often initiated days or weeks later, if it is sought at all. This delay turns a preventable tragedy into an inevitable fatality.
The solution to this crisis is not a mystery, nor does it require unattainable technology. The WHO specifies that vaccinating at least 70% of a dog population is sufficient to interrupt rabies transmission, but achieving that threshold requires a permanent, adequately funded, and monitored ward-level programme, not just sporadic campaigns.
In a landmark judgment on May 19, 2026, the Supreme Court reinforced the ABC Rules 2023, directing that all schools, hospitals, bus stands, and public complexes must be securely fenced to prevent stray entry, while mandating regular pick-up drives and mandatory sterilization. Yet, court orders alone cannot save lives; implementation on the ground will.
We must radically overhaul our solid waste management—enclosed bins, regular collection, and the outright elimination of open dump sites must accompany sterilization efforts. Simultaneously, every district hospital must have a functional anti-rabies clinic with an uninterrupted vaccine supply and staff trained in proper wound management. Public education must be treated as a clinical intervention in itself: persistent, delivered in local languages, reaching every village through health workers, schools, panchayats, and local media.
We possess the scientific knowledge, the legal framework, and the resources to bring this crisis under control. What we lack is the collective will to act decisively and consistently.
(The author is a Veterinarian and an Independent Researcher. Email: [email protected])
