BHOPAL: The civic body's claim that it sterilises over 1,000 stray dogs every month has been exposed as an NGO-run dog shelter in Ratibad has a record that shows only 400 dogs have been sterilisation this year. Going by the register of the Hyderabad registered NGO, Navodaya Vet Society, the Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) should pay Rs 2.80 lakh in 2018 so far for sterilisation of 400 dogs with a total cost of about Rs 700 per pooch.But BMC veterinary officer Dr SK Shrivastava comes out with totally different figures of sterilisation. "There is an estimated 1,400 dogs which are brought to the shelter every month. A four-member committee counts the number of organs and only then payment is made to the NGO, which is around 30 to 35 dogs per day," he said.If the numbers given by Dr Shrivastava are average figures, then BMC has paid about Rs 9.80 lakh per month for the 1,400 operations. Yearly payments for 10,000 plus sterilisations would cost the civic body about Rs 1 crore for the sterilisation drive. Neither Dr Shrivastava nor senior BMC officials are willing to give details of the actual amount paid to the NGO in the past three years.The committee has to provide video-graphed account of assessment before it gives its nod for payment to the NGO. Treatment of biomedical waste for the same is also under suspicion.BMC allocates about Rs 1.5 crore in its budget towards 'stray dog control programmes' every year.The payment is paid to the NGO only after verification of sterilisation by a four-member BMC committee.In a bid to hush up the alleged scam, BMC discontinued services of the NGO in August this year.TOI investigation of the NGO register found the figures claimed by BMC were not matching. Register shows the number at 86 dogs at the shelter from July to December in 2017. The civic body's expenditure on 'control over street dogs ' using four vehicles was about Rs 2 crore during the same period.Suspicions over the modus operandi of the operation have been raised by many in the past. It included questions raised by opposition Congress during the council meeting earlier this year. BMC claims its four vehicles pick up about 35 to 50 dogs each day from the city.According to a rough estimate, the state capital has about 50,000 stray dogs. Government hospitals this season are giving vaccination for over 150 dog bite cases on a regular basis. JP hospital alone has attended about 60 to 75 rabies vaccination cases on each working day, confirmed district civil surgeon, Dr IK Chug. "Services of the NGO have been discontinued from August 31," said Dr Shrivastava. However, TOI found that 60 cages of the shelter home had strays dogs.The civic body allegedly violated provisions of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, at the shelter."Dogs are being fed dalia twice a day," said a guard employed at the dog shelter. Many of the stray dogs brought there were caged since late August and are yet to be released, he added.In 2014, BMC had categorically denied before the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) the allegations that stray dogs were being dumped at the garbage facility. Animal rights activists of the city had alleged that standard operating procedures were not being adhered to in the sterilisation drive, which aims to reduce the stray dog population by half in two years time.

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