Bhopal: Dogs are deviling bikers and pedestrians in the city, but Bhopal Municipal Corporation has so far failed to deal with this menace.
Now it has engaged a survey agency from Gwalior to find out a way to end it.
The survey began about week ago, reports of which are expected within two months.
According to the last census, the city nurtures over 2 lakh stray dogs.
The increasing threat has raised concerns among the administration and the residents equally.
Additional Commissioner, Mayank Verma, told Free Press that they were unsure of the statistics presented by the survey that Animal Husbandry department conducted last year.
Municipal Corporation also had cross-verified the data with the zonal officers, which helped them decide to perform a revised survey, he said.
Increase in stray dog population has called for an urgent construction of more Animal Birth Control (ABC) centres. The city has only one in Neelbad.
BMC claims to have sterilized about 1.8 lakh dogs till last year. Sources, however, say over 90,000 stray dogs are yet to be sterilised.
Verma said the corporation had floated tenders for three ABC centres last year, but could not get a plot of land for it.
The divisional commissioner, Kalpana Srivastava, asked the civic body to build centres on municipal land.
The commissioner office has directed the zonal officers to identify the lands. The corporation aims to construct one centre in each direction of the city.
BMC will set up one centre each in Kolar, Khajuri and in airport area.
The horror of stray dogs has been haunting the city since the last year when half a dozen stray dogs mauled a six-year-old boy to death in Awadhpuri area.
