Bengaluru: City-based animal welfare activists have urged Karnataka govt to strengthen animal birth control (ABC) and anti-rabies vaccination (ARV) programmes instead of maintaining permanent dog pounds.In a letter to the chief minister, the activists claimed that maintaining a dog in a pound would cost Rs 3,035 per month, making it nearly 18 times more expensive than a one-time ABC sterilisation procedure costing Rs 2,000. They argued that investing in pounds would impose an avoidable recurring burden on taxpayers while diverting funds from more effective interventions.The letter by Harini Raghavan and Nandita Subbarao pointed out that setting up a single large-scale pound could cost up to Rs 15 crore, while Greater Bengaluru Authority’s (GBA) entire annual citywide ABC budget was around Rs 9-10 crore.Citing 34 rabies deaths reported across Karnataka this year, the activists said Bengaluru’s GBA limits had recorded zero rabies deaths, which they attributed to the city’s ABC and ARV programmes.They urged govt to convert existing dog pounds into ABC clinics to increase sterilisation capacity and expand vaccination coverage. They also called on the GBA to optimise its existing ABC and ARV infrastructure instead of spending public money on building and maintaining permanent pounds.
