3 weeks ago
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The erstwhile Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Palike’s (BBMP) ambitious task of feeding stray dogs, which was announced successful 2025, has been shelved pursuing the enactment of 5 caller corporations nether the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA), sources said.
The task has been enactment connected the backburner chiefly owed to a deficiency of interest, which activists accidental ‘should not person happened’. However, it is simply a ineligible work for the corporations to provender stray dogs arsenic per the Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, 2023, and the civic assemblage itself had clarified that feeding is simply a ‘statutory requirement’ for them.
According to a GBA official, the feeding task was not adjacent considered during fund allocation, though the corporations person earmarked funds for wide stray canine management. A large information of the allocation was dedicated to establishing infrastructure for relocation and the ABC programme.
“During the modulation to the GBA, files were transferred to antithetic corporations. At the corp level, the contiguous absorption was connected strengthening ABC surgeries and complying with Supreme Court directives, truthful the feeding programme was sidelined,” the authoritative said. He noted that the corporations whitethorn instrumentality it up successful the future, but not immediately.
However, The Hindu has learned from a elder authoritative that erstwhile the programme received a antagonistic effect from a conception of society, and attracted antagonistic publicity implicit disorder betwixt ‘chicken rice’ and ‘biryani’, elder officials astatine the administrative level mislaid interest, and did not determination the record guardant adjacent erstwhile the BBMP was active.
Incidentally, bidders were consenting to enactment successful the tender process.
When the BBMP’s tender papers mentioned chickenhearted rice, it was mistaken for biryani and trolled, prompting the BBMP to contented a clarification. The BBMP pointed retired that feeding was not a caller inaugural successful the city, arsenic it had been launched during the COVID-19 pandemic. The BBMP had arrangements with metropolis restaurants, and leftovers were being fed to dogs. As a continuation of that effort, nutrient was provided to a circumstantial fig of dogs successful 2024 arsenic well.
Nevina Kamath, an carnal rights activist, expressed dissatisfaction implicit shelving the feeding programme contempt the rules intelligibly mandating civic bodies to guarantee that dogs are fed.
“If RWAs oregon flat associations bash not exist, the onus falls connected civic bodies to provender dogs,” she said. “The ABC Rules mandated it due to the fact that determination are precise fewer food-scavenging options for stray animals aft the Solid Waste Management Rules were notified. Even astatine the RWA level, feeding hardly happens. So, this feeding programme was an fantabulous move,” she said.
Anil Sagar, a canine feeder successful southbound Bengaluru, pointed retired that aggression among stray dogs is linked to hunger, and the feeding programme was designed to trim hunger, thereby limiting aggression. “This was a much compassionate mode of dealing with aggression than euthanasia,” helium said.
According to civic assemblage officials, the erstwhile BBMP’s nonsubjective down readying the programme was that, successful definite areas, scarcity of nutrient forces dogs to signifier assertive packs, expanding the likelihood of canine bites. The feeding programme was aimed astatine addressing specified issues.
Ms. Nevina stressed that corporations should guarantee that the ABC Rules are followed, which means that RWAs oregon corporations indispensable guarantee that dogs are fed.
