Cuttack civic body gears up to check stray cattle menace

CUTTACK: After repeated directions of the Orissa high court, the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) has geared up to check menace of stray cattle and stray dogs on the streets of Millennium city.
CMC has constructed a new dog sterilization centre at Buxi Bazaar and civic body officials claim that the second centre will help to
intensify sterilization programme. Meanwhile, the civic body has also resumed dog sterilization programme a fortnight ago at Sartola centre,after a gap of two years.The sterilization programme was stopped in 2013 as Sartola centre was in dilapidated condition and the CMC had no space to perform surgeries and keep the dogs.
“The Sartola centre has been repaired while a second sterilization centre has also come up at Buxi Bazaar. Now we can sterilize atleast 15 dogs a day,” said CMC’s health officer, P K Pradhan, who is in-charge of dogs sterilization programme. Pradhan said that a veterinary doctor will be deployed soon at Buxi Bazaar centre and the sterilization centre will made functional within a month.
There is no accurate figure of stray animals in Cuttack as the civic body has never conducted any survey on it. However, as per records dog sterilization programme was started by it in 2004 and till 2013, around 19,000 street dogs were sterilized.
Meanwhile, the civic body has claimed that it has also chalked out a detail plan to manage stray cattle menace. “We have formed eight special squads to catch stray cattle moving on the roads. On any single day, not less than 25 cows are brought to the kine house. The drive will be intensified in coming days,” said CMC commissioner, Gyana Das. After recovery of penalty from owners of stray cows, the cows are released from kine house while the animals who have no claimants are left at isolated place at Choudwar.
Notably, the CMC has only one kine house for keeping the stray cattle. “We have approached the Collector to provide land for construction of another kine house,” said Das. Denizens allege that the problem of stray animals has turned a major cause of concern. “The problem of stray animals, causing traffic blockades and accidents on city roads is increasing day by day due to the lackadaisical attitude of CMC,” said B K Sahoo, a lawyer.