Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation wakes up to stray dog menace

The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation(AMC) has finally woken up to the dog menace plaguing the city. On Thursday, a standing committee of the AMC sanctioned the purchase of a van worth Rs2.10 lakh to catch dogs.

Earlier, a stray dog had bitten several people in the Rakhial area of the city. The AMC officials said they plan to buy around five dog catching vans so as to control the problem of stray dog in the city.

According to data available with the city hospital around 300 people in the city are bitten by dogs every day.

The AMC's dog sterilisation project, which it had undertaken along with an NGO had not produced much results following a dispute over the payment to be made for sterilising one dog.

While the AMC had said it would pay Rs380 for every dog sterilisied, the NGO wanted more money.

The NGO with support from the AMC had sterilised some 45,000 out of 75,000 stray dogs in the city from January to December 2006.

To achieve results it was important to continue the project but the tussle between the AMC and the NGO left the job unfinished.

The AMC's standing committee also sanctioned the work to celebrate Kankaria Carnival 2009. The celebrations will take place in December.The AMC, meanwhile, has received around 1200 objection letters in response to the Ahmedabad Fire and Emergency Service's advertisement about change in norms for recruiting fire officers.

The AMC following the Gujarat High Court order had decided certain criteria for physical test apart from other eligible criteria for recruitment of fire officers.