"Drastic": Karti Chidambaram Questions If Stray Dog Order Can Be Implemented

The Supreme Court order to send stray dogs to special shelters will be difficult to implement because there is neither funds allocation nor manpower to round up the strays, Congress's Karti Chidambaram told NDTV today. 

"I understand it (the top court's order) is drastic.  Perhaps it can't be implemented in the short time frame.  And, but the reason the Supreme Court has given this order is because the policies until now have failed," Mr Chidambaram said. 

"Whether this drastic order can be actually implemented by the Delhi government, that the Delhi government has to answer for it. But at least this has now triggered a debate.  Every stakeholder has come out," he added.

Amid a rising wave of dog attacks on children and the elderly people, the top court had ordered yesterday that all strays be shifted to shelters equipped with infrastructure and attendants knowledgeable about dogs. It has sparked a huge debate, with all sectiions of society -- Bollywood to political leaders speaking up. Social media is buzzing and animal activists and dog lovers have hit the streets.  

"We are not doing this for us, it is for the public interest. So, no sentiments of any nature should be involved," said a bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan, terming the stray dog menace in Delhi-NCR as "extremely grim".

"For the time being, forget the rules," the court said, declaring that strict action will be taken against any individual or organisation barring the picking up of strays.

"Have you seen the classic 'Good, Bad and the Ugly' - when you want to shoot, shoot, don't talk. It is not the time to talk but act. All these so-called animal lovers, will they be able to bring back those children who have given their lives?" the court had said.

The court has ordered that dog shelters be created to accommodate around 5,000 stray dogs, and sufficient personnel deployed to sterilise and immunise the canines. The court has given eight weeks for this.

"We can't have 6 crore street dogs roaming about in a free state in the streets of India.  That's not acceptable," Mr Chidambaram said, pointing out that in no developed country there is a street dog issue "which is also a health and safety issue".

"My point is, dogs can't be in a free roaming state.  I think that people must be encouraged to adopt dogs.  All dogs must have a collar... or perhaps have a chip.  They must be vaccinated, they must be neutered and they must be in private spaces and not public spaces," he added.