After increasing the number of stray dogs in the city, the corporation has decided to sterilize 600 street dogs every month.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the corporation stopped performing sterilization surgeries for street dogs in 2020 and 2021. As a result, the growth of stray dogs was causing problems for the road users.
During the council meetings, the councilors urged the corporation to take steps to control the stray dog population.
The corporation procured four additional vehicles to catch the dogs and distributed one vehicle in each zone on Monday.
Corporation officials said that since only two vehicles were available, it became difficult to apprehend a large number of street dogs. A total of six vehicles are available with the Corporation at present, which will help in apprehending stray dogs. Additional rooms have been created at the sterilization center at Ponnampet to keep the dogs for a week after the surgery.
Health department officials said that additional doctors have been appointed to perform surgery on the dogs. “Our target is to sterilize 600 dogs in a month. From January 2022 to August, we sterilized 1,900 street dogs on an average of about 240 dogs per month,” the officials said.