Stray dogs bit over 1.28 lakh people in Mumbai in 2024: Eknath Shinde tells council

Nagpur, Dec 12 (PTI) Stray dogs bit more than 1.28 lakh people in Mumbai in a single year in 2024, while this figure in Maharashtra's second capital Nagpur stood at over 9,400, Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde told the state legislative council on Friday.

Shinde gave this information in a written reply to the queries by council members Sunil Shinde, Vasant Khandelwal, Sandip Joshi and others during the Question Hour.

These members raised concern over the increasing number of stray dogs in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) limits and increasing number of stray dog attacks in Nagpur and sought information about the number of stray dogs and dog bites incidents and steps to address the problem.

In his reply, Shinde said the BMC via Human Society International as per the rules of Animal Welfare Board conducted a survey of stray dogs.

As per the survey, there were 95,172 stray dogs in 2014, while the count in the 2024 survey stood at 90,757, he said.

In Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) limits, 9,427 people were bitten by stray dogs, while 1,28,252 people suffered dog bites in Mumbai as per the 2024 figures, Shinde added.

Several steps and programmes, like sterilisation and vaccination of stray dogs and rabies eradication, are being undertaken to control the number of these animals, he said.

Similarly, an independent portal has also been started to resolve citizens's grievances related to the issue.

Land parcels are being searched to set up shelters for aggressive and rabid dogs, he said. PTI CLS NP