TOI : 43-acre land to house townships for strays : Sept 28, 2007

43-acre land to house townships for strays
Rukmini Shrinivasan I TNN

Mumbai: In a city where eight million people live in slums, six lakh stray
dogs will now be rehabilitated in two "townships'' on the outskirts of the
city. On Wednesday, the Mumbai municipal corporation finally took possession
of the two plots at Palghar and Thane.

    After a long delay following concerns over how exactly the BMC would
house and look after the dogs, the BMC on Wednesday took possession of a
25-acre plot at Tembode village in Palghar and an 18-acre plot at Kondle
village in Wada taluka, Thane district.

    The state's urban development department will make the announcement in
an affidavit to be submitted to the Bombay high court on September 29 on the
steps that the government has taken to curb the stray dog menace in the
city.

    The BMC had earlier mentioned the plan to the full bench of the HC
comprising Justices S Radhakrishnan, Dilip Bhosale and Vijaya
Kapse-Tahilramani who were hearing a petition on the matter. In June, the
bench gave its nod to a host of measures including the two mega dog
shelters, sterilisation programmes and a 24-hour helpline. "The idea is to
give the dogs a decent life,'' Justice Radhakrishnan noted.

Although animal activists may not approve of the final plan, the BMC
believes it has now resolved the dilemma over tackling the growing
population of dogs. "The dogs will live permanently in the shelter. The idea
is to have no stray dogs on the city streets,'' additional municipal
commissioner Kishore Gajbhiye told TOI. Admitting that no other city in the
country or the world had such an exclusive township for dogs, Gajbhiye said,
"Mumbai's dogs will now live in a rural background. One of the plots is a
forest area whereas the other is open land.'' The shelters will be run by
NGOs, said Gajbhiye.

Abod Aras of Welfare of Stray Dogs pointed out that the court's order says
only dogs that are not sterilised should be taken away, that too, in a
phased manner. "We had maintained in the court this is not a practical
solution because these dogs are free roaming animals. The cost of keeping
them captive is too high. The behaviour patterns of territorial dogs (pack
leaders) may lead them to fight among themselves to prove hierarchy.
Non-zoonotic contagious diseases may also spread among the dogs,'' says
animal activist Dr Deepa Katyal.

rukmini.shrinivasan@timesgroup.com


Publication:Times of India Mumbai; Date:Sep 28, 2007; Section:Times City;
Page Number:3

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