State Animal Welfare Board pushes for stricter stray dog vaccination measures in Kerala

The State Animal Welfare Board here on Friday (December 19) decided to recommend the Local Self-Governments (LSG) department to step up the vaccination of stray dogs and propose amendments to the Kerala Panchayat Raj Act and the Kerala Municipalities Act to prevent pet dogs from being abandoned on the streets.

The board meeting, chaired by Animal Husbandry Minister J. Chinchurani, also decided to ask the LSG department to make licences mandatory for all pet dogs and initiate measures for installing microchips on them to ensure that they are vaccinated.

The board’s decisions gains significance against the backdrop of the November 7 Supreme Court direction to States and Union Territories to remove stray dogs from public spaces and relocate them to designated shelters after sterilisation and vaccination.

The department will be asked to set up isolation kennels in all panchayats for accommodating violent and ailing dogs. LSG and Animal Husbandry departments will be asked to convene meetings of operators of dog shelters for improving the basic infrastructure in such facilities.

The board also decided to recommend the LSG department to constitute Shelter Management Committees under it at the district level as per the directions of the Supreme Court.

In addition to the seven portable animal birth control (ABC) units planned by the Animal Husbandry department, the LSG department will be asked to set up portable ABC units in all block panchayats that lack them. It has also been decided to constitute people’s committee in places where there is opposition to starting ABC Centres.

Further, the services of the Kerala Solutions for Managing Administrative Reformation and Transformation (K-SMART) project will be sought to simplify the process of issuing licences to pet dogs.