NEW DELHI: Municipal Corporation of Delhi has no plans to impose a ban on keeping dogs of certain breeds as pets. Civic officials said Delhi Municipal Corporation (DMC) Act, 1957 allows them to only challenge the pet owner under Section 399. That means if a dog is not registered, then MCD can issue a challan. “A challan of maximum Rs 500 can be issued. However, we immediately act on complaints received from people about nuisance created by pets in their area. The department verifies the documents/proof to ensure that a pet licence has been issued and the allegations made by other people are genuine to ensure no misuse of the facility,” said a senior MCD official. Pet registration, however, is very low in the city. MCD data shows only 1,101 people registered their pets from April 1 to September 15 this year. Regarding dog bite cases registered with hospitals, 13,690 cases (including by stray dogs) were lodged till September 15, 2022 compared with 7,950 in the entire 2021, 22,804 in 2020, 15, 014 in 2019 and 22,542 in 2018. To encourage dog owners to get their pets registered, MCD has started an online facility for issuance of the registration certificate. Officials, however, said despite Sector 399 making registration mandatory, adherence was not high. The civic body has 17 sterilisation centres to minimise the population of stray dogs. These animal birth control centres have the capacity to sterilise about 11,000 canines each month. In all, 6,143 stray dogs were sterilised in July. “The capacity of these centres is sufficient and there is no plan to add more as of now,” said the MCD official. Regarding carrying out a fresh census to ascertain the population of stray dogs, no decision has been taken by MCD. In 2016, the erstwhile south corporation was the first civic body in the city to conduct a census in which they found 1,89,285 dogs in their areas. Of these, only 64,837 were found sterilised.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/pet-peeve-mcd-says-it-has-no-plan-to-ban-certain-dog-breeds/articleshow/94951314.cms