Why Cant Dogs of Delhi NCR Can’t be Put inside Shelters?

The capital city is witnessing massive protests for the animal called the best friend to humans: the street dog. Animal protection organisations are strongly opposed to the Supreme Court directive for Delhi NCR civic authorities to pick up street dogs and relocate them to shelters. Supporters of the canines believe that this move is impractical and inhumane for healthy, vaccinated animals. 

But even if the Supreme Court’s direction to relocate the stray dogs from streets to shelters is implemented, the government of the capital city actually lacks the infrastructure to accommodate thousands of street dogs in shelters. 

With no dedicated shelters, limited sterilisation centres usually restricted to South Delhi, and no proper fund allocation, this decision by the Supreme Court has an implementation flaw. There is a limit to which the NGO sterilisation centres can accommodate the stray dogs. 

Other countries around the world deal with the same problem a bit differently. At a time when the Delhi government is coming up with plans to accommodate stray dogs inside shelters, India’s own neighbour, Bhutan, recorded 100% sterilisation of the stray dog population under its nationwide Accelerated Dog Population Management and Rabies Control Programme introduced in 2021. 

Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, a similar type of programme was implemented with a total budget of ₹29,00,00,000 and was carried out by more than 12,000 personnel. The country was dealing with a large stray population in the early 1900s. 

But Holland became dog-free after a series of legislation, including a ‘dog tax’.