‘Draft of by-laws to curb number of stray dogs okayed by CM’

The draft of the by-laws to control the population of stray dogs and their mass vaccination has been approved by the chief minister, and it will now be placed before the cabinet for the final approval, the local government secretary informed the Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday.

Hearing a petition calling for controlling the population of stray dogs and demanding the availability of free rabies vaccine, an SHC division bench headed by Justice Mohammad Ali Mazhar had asked the LG secretary about the framing of the by-laws to deal with stray dogs under the Sindh Local Government Act (SLGA) 2013.

LG Secretary Najam Ahmed Shah said that a committee was formed under Section 139 of the SLGA to formulate by-laws regarding the matters enumerated in clauses 8, 9 and 10 of Schedule VIII of the Act that deal with the detention, destruction and enforcement of vaccination of stray dogs.

Shah said that the committee approved the draft of the by-laws that was then also approved by the CM. He said that the draft rules will be presented in the next cabinet meeting for the final approval.

Regarding the rabies control programme and its implementation, the project director of the programme said that a tender was published in newspapers for supplying vaccines according to the relevant procurement rules.

He said that the department evaluated the technical bids, and that the financial bids will be opened in two days, while the entire process will be completed within the next 10 days.

He also said that the department already received the cabinet’s permission to purchase 60 vehicles to maintain smooth transportation of stray dogs to take them to vaccination centres and release them in their territories.

The bench took notice over the no-show of the Karachi administrator and ordered him to appear in court to explain the reasons for non-compliance with the SHC’s orders. The LG secretary said that their department has been regularly convening meetings with the municipal commissioners of all districts.

The bench said that dog-bite cases are rapidly increasing every day in all areas of the province, and directed the local government to immediately evolve a mechanism to get updates from all the district municipal corporations (DMCs) on a weekly basis to control and avoid such incidents, and gauge their performance in their respective jurisdictions.

The court directed the LG secretary to call for a weekly report from the Taluka municipal officers, to personally monitor the task of overseeing the performance of the DMCs and the Taluka municipal officers, and to submit a compliance report.

The bench directed the cantonment boards to submit their progress reports as well as to ensure that the task force will be deployed in their respective jurisdictions. The Cantonment Board Clifton’s counsel said that they have forwarded the draft by-laws to the military estate officer for approval, and sought time to file a compliance report in the next hearing.