Animal birth control to restart in Malappuram

Malappuram: After strong demand from the part of public, authorities have announced that

street dog sterilization

and vaccination programme would be launched in the district on October 25, Friday.

The

Animal Birth Control

(ABC) programme being implemented by district panchayat with the support of animal husbandry department and Kudumbashree mission.

The first phase of the programme would be implemented in civil station area in Malappuram town by sterilizing and

vaccinating stray dogs

in the area. The dogs which would be caught from civil station premises would be taken to sub-centre of veterinary hospital in Chungathara in Nilambur for sterilization surgery. The ABC programme would be implemented also in Wandoor and Perinthalmanna region in the following days.

It is the trained Kudumbashree workers who will catch street dogs under the programme. The training was conducted with the support of a Bangalore based NGO. The Kudumbashree team was also trained to set up make-shift facilities to carry out sterilization surgeries on dogs.

A total Rs 21.44 lakh was earmarked for the second phase of the ABC project in the district. District collector Jafar Malik said that make-shift facilities to sterilize dogs would be arranged in the areas where stray dog menace is being reported.

There was public outrage across the district after frequent incidents of street dog attacks. A five-year old boy was seriously injured in the attack by a stray dog in front of his school at Wandoor. In another incident four persons including a 2-year-old child was injured in stray dog attack at Ponnani. A street dog sterilisation process under ABC programme was started in Malappuram in January 2017 by the district panchayat in association with Animal Husbandry department. But, the programme was concluded on May 1, after sterilizing and vaccinating a total of around 2,600 stray dogs in various parts of the district.