KMC to urge Centre for guidelines on vaccination or sterilisation of cats in city

Kolkata: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation will write to the union Animal Husbandry department seeking guidelines on vaccination or sterilisation of cats that are found loitering in the city.

Deputy Mayor Atin Ghosh while leading a drive on sterilisation and vaccination of stray dogs on NRS campus on Friday afternoon found a substantial number of cats roaming inside the premises.

"We are in the dark about what to do with the felines. If they are pets, there should be some laws in place to ensure they remain within households and if they are not, then what should be our stand? Should we go for birth control of the cats like the dogs? The Centre should have a guideline," Ghosh said.

NRS is also writing a letter to the Centre on the same subject because cat population is on the rise at the hospital premises.

It may be mentioned that sights of cats are quite common in state-run hospitals and there have been instances of patients getting bitten by the campus cats.

The Health department of the civic body on Friday picked up a number of dogs from NRS for sterilisation and vaccination.

"We will take the animals to our dog pound at Dhapa and will sterilize them. The animals that have already undergone the process related to birth control will be registered anti-rabies vaccine,"

Ghosh said.

Ghosh has already written to all state government hospitals as well as other government offices across the city expressing his desire to take up sterilisation and vaccination drive of the street dogs.

"We will vaccinate and sterilize, whichever is necessary, and will drop them at the same place as this is the law under the Animal Birth Control programme," a senior official of the civic

body said.